Retrograde and Direct Wave Locomotion in a Photosensitive Self-Oscillating Gel

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• 作者：Lin Ren ; Weibing She ; Prof. Dr. Qingyu Gao ; Dr. Changwei Pan ; Dr. Chen Ji and Prof. Dr. Irving R. Epstein
• 刊名：Angewandte Chemie
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：November 7, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：128
• 期：46
• 页码：14513-14517
• 全文大小：2546K
• ISSN：1521-3757

文摘

Crawling motion mediated by retrograde and direct waves, that is, in the opposite or the same direction, respectively, as the muscular wave that generates it, is a fundamental mode of biological locomotion, from which more complex and sophisticated locomotion modes involving outgrowths such as limbs and wings may have evolved. A detailed general description of muscular wave locomotion and its relationship with other modes of locomotion is a challenging task. We employ a model of a photosensitive self-oscillating gel, in which chemical pulse waves and a stimulus-responsive medium play roles analogous to nerve pulses and deformable muscles in an animal, to generate retrograde and direct waves under non-uniform illumination. Analysis reveals that the directional locomotion arises from a force asymmetry that results in unequal translation lengths in the push and pull regions associated with a pulse wave. This asymmetry can be modulated by the kinetic parameters of the photosensitive Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction and the performance parameters of the gel, enabling a transition between retrograde and direct wave locomotion.