Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 60: Physics of Parasites - Joint Focus Session (BP/DY) organized by Holger Stark

BP 60.4: Talk

Friday, March 24, 2017, 11:15–11:45, SCH A251

An in silico model for the African trypanosome — •Holger Stark — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Berlin, Hardenbergstr. 36, 10623 Berlin, Germany

The African trypanosome is the causative agent of the sleeping sickness and there is tremendous interest in understanding all aspects of how it moves forward and how it interacts with its environment. This includes the blood flow in blood vessels and passing the brain-blood barrier. Therefore, in the past years we have developed an in silico model for the African trypanosome, which fairly well captures its swimming motion [1-3]. The trypanosome has a conventional eukaryotic flagellum attached to its body. When a bending wave runs along the flagellum, the whole body deforms and is able to swim in the liquid environment, which me model with a particle-based solver of the Stokes equations called multi-particle collision dynamics.

With the help of the in silico model, we are able to demonstrate that the helical attachment of the flagellum optimizes the swimming speed [3], which helps the trypanosome to dispose of antibodies. We also simulate different morphotypes that occur during the parasite’s development in the tsetse fly [3]. Finally, we address swimming in confinement and demonstrate that nearby channel walls or obstacles help the trypanosome to move forward.
[1] S. B. Babu and H. Stark, New J. Phys. 14, 085012 (2012).
N. Heddergott et al., PLoS Pathogen 8, e1003023 (2012).
D. Alizadehrad, T. Krüger, M. Engstler, and H. Stark,
 PLoS Comput. Biol. 11, e1003967 (2015).