Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 32: Computational Biophysics II

BP 32.9: Talk

Friday, March 21, 2025, 11:45–12:00, H46

Simulating Trypanosome Motility — •Florian Overberg, Gerhard Gompper, and Dmitry Fedosov — Theoretical Physics of Living Matter, Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52428 Jülich, Germany

We investigate motility of the protozoan Trypanosoma brucei via numerical simulations, in which a trypanosome model is informed by experimental observations. The cell body is represented by a set of vertices distributed homogeneously on a pre-defined elongated surface, forming a triangulated elastic network of springs. This network model incorporates bending rigidity, area conservation, and volume conservation constraints. For the generation of propulsion, a flagellum is attached to the cell body. The flagellum consists of four parallel filaments, two of which are embedded in the body and used for generating a propagating bending wave. We examine the parasite behavior for various conditions, including different flagellum and body stiffnesses, beating frequencies, actuation wavelengths, and amplitudes. Our simulations yield swimming velocities and rotation frequencies around the swimming axis that are in a good agreement with experimental measurements. Additionally, we investigate the importance of various actuation characteristics, such as orientation of the beating plane and the stress-free conformation of the flagellum. We have also started to study parasite motility in a stationary blood suspension, which serves as a first step to understand trypanosome behavior in one of its natural environments such as blood vasculature.

Keywords: Simulation; Trypanosoma; Hydrodynamics; Flagelladynamics; Microswimmer