TY  - JOUR
A1  - Krüger, Timothy
A1  - Engstler, Markus
T1  - The fantastic voyage of the trypanosome: a protean micromachine perfected during 500 million years of engineering
JF  - Micromachines
N2  - The human body is constantly attacked by pathogens. Various lines of defence have evolved, among which the immune system is principal. In contrast to most pathogens, the African trypanosomes thrive freely in the blood circulation, where they escape immune destruction by antigenic variation and incessant motility. These unicellular parasites are flagellate microswimmers that also withstand the harsh mechanical forces prevailing in the bloodstream. They undergo complex developmental cycles in the bloodstream and organs of the mammalian host, as well as the disease-transmitting tsetse fly. Each life cycle stage has been shaped by evolution for manoeuvring in distinct microenvironments. Here, we introduce trypanosomes as blueprints for nature-inspired design of trypanobots, micromachines that, in the future, could explore the human body without affecting its physiology. We review cell biological and biophysical aspects of trypanosome motion. While this could provide a basis for the engineering of microbots, their actuation and control still appear more like fiction than science. Here, we discuss potentials and challenges of trypanosome-inspired microswimmer robots.
KW  - trypanosoma
KW  - microswimmer
KW  - parasite
KW  - flagellate
KW  - microenvironment
KW  - cellular waveform
KW  - tsetse
KW  - microbot
KW  - trypanobot
Y1  - 2018
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-175944
VL  - 9
IS  - 2
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schuster, Sarah
A1  - Krüger, Timothy
A1  - Subota, Ines
A1  - Thusek, Sina
A1  - Rotureau, Brice
A1  - Beilhack, Andreas
A1  - Engstler, Markus
T1  - Developmental adaptations of trypanosome motility to the tsetse fly host environments unravel a multifaceted in vivo microswimmer system
JF  - eLife
N2  - The highly motile and versatile protozoan pathogen Trypanosoma brucei undergoes a complex life cycle in the tsetse fly. Here we introduce the host insect as an expedient model environment for microswimmer research, as it allows examination of microbial motion within a diversified, secluded and yet microscopically tractable space. During their week-long journey through the different microenvironments of the fly´s interior organs, the incessantly swimming trypanosomes cross various barriers and confined surroundings, with concurrently occurring major changes of parasite cell architecture. Multicolour light sheet fluorescence microscopy provided information about tsetse tissue topology with unprecedented resolution and allowed the first 3D analysis of the infection process. High-speed fluorescence microscopy illuminated the versatile behaviour of trypanosome developmental stages, ranging from solitary motion and near-wall swimming to collective motility in synchronised swarms and in confinement. We correlate the microenvironments and trypanosome morphologies to high-speed motility data, which paves the way for cross-disciplinary microswimmer research in a naturally evolved environment.
KW  - none
KW  - tsetse fly
KW  - Trypanosoma
KW  - biophysics
KW  - microswimmer
KW  - sleeping sickness
KW  - structural biology
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-158662
VL  - 6
ER  -