Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 18: Posters: Statistical Physics in Biological Systems

BP 18.22: Poster

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 17:30–19:30, Poster A

Modeling the swimming African Trypanosome using mulit-particle collision dynamics — •Sujin Babu and Holger Stark — Institute for Theoretical Physics, Technische University Berlin, D-10623 Berlin, Germany

The African Trypanosome is a unicellular organism which attacks the central nervous system of humans, causing the deadly disease called the sleeping sickness. The spindle-shaped flexible cell body of the African Trypanosome possesses some bending rigidity due to its cytoskeleton. A single flagellum runs from the posterior end to the anterior end of the cell body and is firmly attached to it. By propagating a wave along the flagellum from the anterior to the posterior end, the Trypanosome propels itself. However, the details of how the flagellum is attached to the cell body and its propulsion mechanism is still under debate. Our goal is to study a model Trypanosome in its viscous environment. We model the cell body and the flagellum (attached either straight or helical to the cell body) as a mesh of vertices connected by springs with some resistance to bending. A bending wave passing through the flagellum propels the organism in the direction opposite to the propagating wave. We simulate the flow field around the model Trypanosome using the method of multi-particle collision dynamics, which is an effective solver for the Navier-Stokes equations. We will demonstrate that our model is able to reproduce the experimental results both qualitatively and quantitatively. We will also show that the so called sperm number used in resistive force theory reveals a characteristic scaling in the dynamics of such a self-propelled elastic body.