Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 24: Posters: Physics of Cells
BP 24.28: Poster
Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 17:30–19:30, Poster C
Stochastic dynamics of gliding motility — •Thorsten Erdmann1,2 and Ulrich S. Schwarz1,2 — 1Institute for Theoretical Physics, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany — 2BioQuant, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
After being injected into the skin tissue of a vertebrate during a mosquito bite, the sporozoite form of the malaria parasite glides through the tissue in order to reach blood vessels. Experimental trajectories reveal strong fluctuations of the speed of the gliding motility. On the sub-second time scale, sporozoites seem to move in a stick-slip fashion. On longer time scales, gliding is arrested by occasional stationary attachments of the rear of the sporozoite. In order to investigate the stochastic dynamics of gliding motility, we derive a model for the propulsion mechanism, in which specialized adhesion molecules bind to the substrate and are displaced relative to the sporozoite body by small groups of non-processive molecular motors. We study the different regimes of movement in dependence on the binding characteristics of the adhesion molecules, which are described as slip bonds as well as catch bonds, and in dependence on the effective processivity and force-velocity relation characterizing the molecular motors. In order to assess the role of elasticity, we also study the motion of stiff segments of the basic model which are elastically coupled to each other.