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Cell biology

How cilia beat

Nature volume 463, pages 308–309 (2010)Cite this article

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Physics provides new approaches to difficult biological problems: a plausible mathematical model of how cilia and flagella beat has been formulated, but it needs to be subjected to rigorous experimental tests.

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Figure 1: Axoneme structure and dynein regulation.
Figure 2: Self-organized oscillations in a system of opposed motors and springs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. T. J. Mitchison is in the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. timothy_mitchison@hms.harvard.edu,

    T. J. Mitchison

  2. H. M. Mitchison is at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, London WC1N 1EH, UK. h.mitchison@ich.ucl.ac.uk ,

    H. M. Mitchison

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  1. T. J. Mitchison
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  2. H. M. Mitchison
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Mitchison, T., Mitchison, H. How cilia beat. Nature 463, 308–309 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/463308a

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