TY  - JOUR
A1  - Uppaluri, Sravanti
A1  - Nagler, Jan
A1  - Stellamanns, Eric
A1  - Heddergott, Niko
A1  - Herminghaus, Stephan
A1  - Pfohl, Thomas
A1  - Engstler, Markus
T1  - Impact of Microscopic Motility on the Swimming Behavior of Parasites: Straighter Trypanosomes are More Directional
JF  - PLoS Computational Biology
N2  - Microorganisms, particularly parasites, have developed sophisticated swimming mechanisms to cope with a varied range of environments. African Trypanosomes, causative agents of fatal illness in humans and animals, use an insect vector (the Tsetse fly) to infect mammals, involving many developmental changes in which cell motility is of prime importance. Our studies reveal that differences in cell body shape are correlated with a diverse range of cell behaviors contributing to the directional motion of the cell. Straighter cells swim more directionally while cells that exhibit little net displacement appear to be more bent. Initiation of cell division, beginning with the emergence of a second flagellum at the base, correlates to directional persistence. Cell trajectory and rapid body fluctuation correlation analysis uncovers two characteristic relaxation times: a short relaxation time due to strong body distortions in the range of 20 to 80 ms and a longer time associated with the persistence in average swimming direction in the order of 15 seconds. Different motility modes, possibly resulting from varying body stiffness, could be of consequence for host invasion during distinct infective stages.
KW  - African Trypanosomes
KW  - Cell Motility
KW  - Random-Walk
KW  - Brucei
KW  - Components
KW  - Flagellum
KW  - Biology
KW  - Motion
KW  - Chemotaxis
KW  - Movement
Y1  - 2011
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-140814
VL  - 7
IS  - 6
ER  -