Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut 06030-6406, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2012 Nov 21;109(21):218104. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.218104.
The Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, swims by undulating its cell body in the form of a traveling flat wave, a process driven by rotating internal flagella. We study B. burgdorferi's swimming by treating the cell body and flagella as linearly elastic filaments. The dynamics of the cell are then determined from the balance between elastic and resistive forces and moments. We find that planar, traveling waves only exist when the flagella are effectively anchored at both ends of the bacterium and that these traveling flat waves rotate as they undulate. The model predicts how the undulation frequency is related to the torque from the flagellar motors and how the stiffness of the cell body and flagella affect the undulations and morphology.
莱姆病螺旋体,即伯氏疏螺旋体,通过以行进的平面波形式使细胞体呈波浪状摆动来游动,这一过程由旋转的内部鞭毛驱动。我们将细胞体和鞭毛视为线性弹性丝来研究伯氏疏螺旋体的游动。然后通过平衡弹性力和阻力矩来确定细胞的动力学。我们发现,只有当鞭毛在细菌的两端有效固定时,平面行进波才会存在,并且这些行进的平面波在波动时会旋转。该模型预测了波的频率如何与鞭毛马达的扭矩相关,以及细胞体和鞭毛的刚度如何影响波的运动和形态。