Transient Superdiffusion and Long-Range Correlations in the Motility Patterns of Trypanosomatid Flagellate Protozoa.

ABSTRACT: We report on a diffusive analysis of the motion of flagellate protozoa species. These parasites are the etiological agents of neglected tropical diseases: leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania amazonensis and Leishmania braziliensis, African sleeping sickness caused by Trypanosoma brucei, and Chagas disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. By tracking the positions of these parasites and evaluating the variance related to the radial positions, we find that their motions are characterized by a short-time transient superdiffusive behavior. Also, the probability distributions of the radial positions are self-similar and can be approximated by a stretched Gaussian distribution. We further investigate the probability distributions of the radial velocities of individual trajectories. Among several cand

SUBMITTER: Alves LG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4805249 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature