Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 25: Cell Mechanics II

BP 25.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 15:45–16:00, HÜL 386

Stochastic bond dynamics induce optimal alignment of malaria parasite — •Anil Kumar Dasanna, Sebastian Hillringhaus, Gerhard Gompper, and Dmitry Fedosov — Institute of Complex Systems and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Malaria parasites invade healthy red blood cells (RBCs) to escape from the immune response and multiply inside the host by utilizing its machinery. The invasion only occurs when the parasite apex is aligned with RBC membrane, which makes the alignment a crucial step. Recent experiments also demonstrated that there is a considerable membrane deformation during the alignment process which are thought to speed up the alignment process. In this work, using mesoscopic simulations we try to assess the exact roles of RBC deformations and parasite adhesion during the alignment. Using deformable RBC and a rigid parasite, we show that both RBC deformation and parasite's adhesion work together to induce an optimal alignment. By calibrating our parasite's movement with experiments, we show that our alignment times match quantitatively with the experimental alignment times. Here we stress that the stochastic nature of our adhesion bond kinetics is the key for inducing optimal alignment times rather than too fast times such as in case of smooth potentials or too slow such as in case of purely rotational diffusion. We also show that alignment times increase drastically for rigid RBC which signifies that parasite invasion is less probable with already infected RBC and signifying the role of membrane deformations during the parasite alignment.