English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

The motility of many parasites is critical for the infection process of theirhost, as exemplified by the transmission cycle of the blood fluke Schistosomamansoni. In their human infectious stage, immature, submillimetre-scale formsof the parasite known as cercariae swim in freshwater and infect humans bypenetrating through the skin. This infection causes Schistosomiasis, aparasitic disease that is comparable to malaria in its global socio-economicimpact. Given that cercariae do not feed and hence have a finite lifetime ofaround 12 hours, efficient motility is crucial for the parasite's survival andtransmission of Schistosomiasis. However, a first-principles understanding ofhow cercariae swim is lacking. Via a combined experimental, theoretical androbotics based approach, we demonstrate that cercariae propel themselvesagainst gravity by exploiting a unique elastohydrodynamic coupling. We showthat cercariae beat their tail in a periodic fashion while maintaining a fixedflexibility near their posterior and anterior ends. The flexibility in theseregions allows an interaction between the fluid drag and bending resistance: anelastohydrodynamic coupling, to naturally break time-reversal symmetry andenable locomotion at small length-scales. We present a theoretical model, a'T-swimmer', which captures the key swimming phenotype of cercariae. We furthervalidate our results experimentally through a macro-scale robotic realizationof the 'T-swimmer', explaining the unique forked-tail geometry of cercariae.Finally, we find that cercariae maintain the flexibility at their posterior andanterior ends at an optimal regime for efficient swimming, as predicted by ourtheoretical model. We anticipate that our work sets the ground for linking theswimming of S. mansoni cercariae to disease transmission and enablesexplorations of novel strategies for Schistosomiasis prevention.

Schistosoma mansoni cercariae exploit an elastohydrodynamic coupling to swim efficiently