Dresden 2020 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 36: Cytoskeletal Filaments I
BP 36.2: Talk
Thursday, March 19, 2020, 15:15–15:30, SCH A251
Hidden Dynamics of the Red Blood Cell Cytoskeleton — •Julia Jäger1,2, Michael Lanzer3, and Ulrich S Schwarz1,2 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Heidelberg — 2Bioquant, Universität Heidelberg — 3Parasitologie, Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg
The spectrin-actin cytoskeleton of the red blood cell (RBC) is usually considered to be relatively static. Recent studies on malaria infections however have started to change this picture. Malaria parasites invade red blood cells in order to hide from the immune system and to digest hemoglobin. During the time course of the 48 hours until exit, they completely remodel the host cell envelope. This includes dramatic changes of the cytoskeleton, which most likely exploit dynamical processes that have gone unnoticed before. To better understand the dynamics of the cytoskeleton of healthy RBCs, we perform stochastic particle-based computer simulations, which in particular include the polymerization and depolarization of the junctional actin filaments. We then examine different potential mechanisms with which the parasite could exploit these dynamics of the RBC-cytoskeleton to remodel the host cell.