Analysis of Motility Patterns of Stentor During and After Oral Apparatus Regeneration Using Cell Tracking

Stentor coeruleus is a well-known model organism for the study of unicellular regeneration. Transcriptomic analysis of individual cells revealed hundreds of genes—many not associated with the oral apparatus (OA)—that are differentially regulated in phases throughout the regeneration process. It was hypothesized that this systemic reorganization and mobilization of cellular resources towards growth of a new OA will lead to observable changes in movement and behavior corresponding in time to the phases of differential gene expression. However, the morphological complexity of S. coeruleus necessitated the development of an assay to capture the statistics and timescale. A custom script was used to track cells in short videos, and statistics were compiled over a large population (N ~100). Upon loss of the OA, S. coeruleus initially loses the ability for directed motion; then starting at ~4 h, it exhibits a significant drop in speed until ~8 h. This assay provides a useful tool for the screening of motility phenotypes and can be adapted for the investigation of other organisms.