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Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane

During the blood stage of malaria pathogenesis, parasites invade healthy red blood cells (RBC) to multiply inside the host and evade the immune response. When attached to RBC, the parasite first has to align its apex with the membrane for a successful invasion. Since the parasite’s apex sits at the...

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Autores principales: Dasanna, Anil K, Hillringhaus, Sebastian, Gompper, Gerhard, Fedosov, Dmitry A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8331178/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34286696
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68818
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author Dasanna, Anil K
Hillringhaus, Sebastian
Gompper, Gerhard
Fedosov, Dmitry A
author_facet Dasanna, Anil K
Hillringhaus, Sebastian
Gompper, Gerhard
Fedosov, Dmitry A
author_sort Dasanna, Anil K
collection PubMed
description During the blood stage of malaria pathogenesis, parasites invade healthy red blood cells (RBC) to multiply inside the host and evade the immune response. When attached to RBC, the parasite first has to align its apex with the membrane for a successful invasion. Since the parasite’s apex sits at the pointed end of an oval (egg-like) shape with a large local curvature, apical alignment is in general an energetically unfavorable process. Previously, using coarse-grained mesoscopic simulations, we have shown that optimal alignment time is achieved due to RBC membrane deformation and the stochastic nature of bond-based interactions between the parasite and RBC membrane (Hillringhaus et al., 2020). Here, we demonstrate that the parasite’s shape has a prominent effect on the alignment process. The alignment times of spherical parasites for intermediate and large bond off-rates (or weak membrane-parasite interactions) are found to be close to those of an egg-like shape. However, for small bond off-rates (or strong adhesion and large membrane deformations), the alignment time for a spherical shape increases drastically. Parasite shapes with large aspect ratios such as oblate and long prolate ellipsoids are found to exhibit very long alignment times in comparison to the egg-like shape. At a stiffened RBC, a spherical parasite aligns faster than any other investigated shape. This study shows that the original egg-like shape performs not worse for parasite alignment than other considered shapes but is more robust with respect to different adhesion interactions and RBC membrane rigidities.
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spelling pubmed-83311782021-08-04 Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane Dasanna, Anil K Hillringhaus, Sebastian Gompper, Gerhard Fedosov, Dmitry A eLife Physics of Living Systems During the blood stage of malaria pathogenesis, parasites invade healthy red blood cells (RBC) to multiply inside the host and evade the immune response. When attached to RBC, the parasite first has to align its apex with the membrane for a successful invasion. Since the parasite’s apex sits at the pointed end of an oval (egg-like) shape with a large local curvature, apical alignment is in general an energetically unfavorable process. Previously, using coarse-grained mesoscopic simulations, we have shown that optimal alignment time is achieved due to RBC membrane deformation and the stochastic nature of bond-based interactions between the parasite and RBC membrane (Hillringhaus et al., 2020). Here, we demonstrate that the parasite’s shape has a prominent effect on the alignment process. The alignment times of spherical parasites for intermediate and large bond off-rates (or weak membrane-parasite interactions) are found to be close to those of an egg-like shape. However, for small bond off-rates (or strong adhesion and large membrane deformations), the alignment time for a spherical shape increases drastically. Parasite shapes with large aspect ratios such as oblate and long prolate ellipsoids are found to exhibit very long alignment times in comparison to the egg-like shape. At a stiffened RBC, a spherical parasite aligns faster than any other investigated shape. This study shows that the original egg-like shape performs not worse for parasite alignment than other considered shapes but is more robust with respect to different adhesion interactions and RBC membrane rigidities. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2021-07-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8331178/ /pubmed/34286696 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68818 Text en © 2021, Dasanna et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Physics of Living Systems
Dasanna, Anil K
Hillringhaus, Sebastian
Gompper, Gerhard
Fedosov, Dmitry A
Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane
title Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane
title_full Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane
title_fullStr Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane
title_full_unstemmed Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane
title_short Effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane
title_sort effect of malaria parasite shape on its alignment at erythrocyte membrane
topic Physics of Living Systems
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8331178/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34286696
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68818
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