Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 43: Active Matter IV (joint session BP/CPP/DY)
DY 43.4: Talk
Friday, March 21, 2025, 10:30–10:45, H44
Trypanosoma brucei (un)chained - effects of confinement on a parasitic microswimmer — •Hannes Wunderlich1, Marinus Thein2, Lucas Brehm2, Klaus Ersfeld2, and Matthias Weiss1 — 1Experimental Physics I, University of Bayreuth — 2Laboratory of Molecular Parasitology, University of Bayreuth
Trypanosoma brucei is a parasitic unicellular microswimmer that causes the African sleeping sickness. An active spiral movement of the parasite, mediated by a microtubule-driven flagellum that wraps around the cell body, is mandatory to evade the host’s immune system while exploring tissues and blood vessels. In addition, the nematic subpellicular micotubule array plays a pivotal role in the elasticity, propulsion, and navigation of the parasite. To study the features and mechanisms behind the cell’s motion in such complex environments, we have mimicked spatial confinement in microfluidic devices with different geometries. Our data show that spatial constraints in narrow channels and channel networks can improve cell locomotion of wild-type trypanosomes, supposedly due to the interaction of the elastic cell body and nearby walls. The addition of microtubule-disrupting drugs or the use of mutant strains with altered post-translational modifications of microtubules resulted in significantly altered swimming velocities and marked changes in the intermittent switching between run and tumble phases. Shape analyses of individual cells suggest that microtubules in the sub-pellicular array, the corset that keeps trypanosomes in their native spindle-like shape, are most affected in these cases.
Keywords: Microswimmer; Microfluidics; Cell tracking; Confinement; Run and Tumble