Ratio of oxygen consumption rate per cell with stirring to that without stirring

Value 0.97 unitless Range: ±0.56 unitless
Organism Ciliate Paramecium caudatum
Reference Katsu-Kimura Y, Nakaya F, Baba SA, Mogami Y. Substantial energy expenditure for locomotion in ciliates verified by means of simultaneous measurement of oxygen consumption rate and swimming speed. J Exp Biol. 2009 Jun212(Pt 12):1819-24. doi: 10.1242/jeb.028894. p.1821 left column top paragraphPubMed ID19482999
Method "In this paper, [researchers] will present the energy expenditure of Paramecium in close relation to its swimming activity. For this purpose, paramecia were confined in a small volume of the chamber (<1 ml) and the oxygen consumption rate and the swimming speed were measured simultaneously from the same specimens. Oxygen consumption was measured by means of an optic fluorescence oxygen sensor (Okubo et al., 2008). Because this sensor has proved not to alter the amount of dissolved oxygen unlike oxygen electrodes, which consume a substantial amount of oxygen during the measurement procedure, it is ideal for measuring the oxygen concentration in a small volume of a sample. Swimming speed was measured from the recording obtained by the optical slice method (Kato et al., 2003)."
Comments "The VO2 [rate of oxygen uptake] of the cells in the experimental chamber (Fig. 1) while being stirred continually, by a small magnetic bar put into the cell suspension, was not significantly different from that measured after stirring had stopped and vice versa. Stirring and post-stirring measurements were done 5–10 min after the stirring was ‘on’ and ‘off’, respectively. The ratio of the rate with stirring to that without stirring was 0.97±0.56 (±s.d.) and was not significantly different from 1.0 (N=8, P=0.87)."
Entered by Uri M
ID 110785