Dresden 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 10: Biofluiddynamics
BP 10.4: Vortrag
Dienstag, 24. März 2009, 15:00–15:15, HÜL 186
Cell surface protein dynamics in microflow — •Eric Stellamanns1, Sravanti Uppaluri1, Niko Heddergott2, Markus Engstler2, and Thomas Pfohl1 — 1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organization, Göttingen, Germany — 2Technical University of Darmstadt, Cellular Dynamics Unit, Darmstadt, Germany
The human bloodstream parasite Trypanosoma brucei has evolved a clever trick to escape its host's immune response. Living in an environment of constant flux, it propels itself with a relative velocity of 20μm/s, washing off any hostile antibody that binds to its variable surface glycoprotein (VSG) coat. Optical tweezers and microfluidic techniques are used to label single VSG dimers of living trypanosomes with quantum dots (Qdots) as antibody mimics. The highly fluorescent Qdots allow us to trace single VSG-Qdot complexes along the cell membrane, thereby we study the effects of flow velocity, fluid viscosity and cell motility on the transport of these ``molecular sails''. Further we examine hydrodynamic forces on the molecular scale and describe their protein organizing effects in cell membranes.