Different patterns of P. berghei sporozoite migration in the skin.

(A) Sporozoites gliding within the skin of the ear. i: Colored tracks of 6 gliding sporozoites over 275 s (see Video S1) . Scale bar: 25 µm. ii: single frames and maximum fluorescent intensity projection of an immotile and a circular gliding sporozoite. Scale bar: 10 µm. iii: projection of a meandering sporozoite (left: max projection over 82 s; right: pseudo-colored track (RGB) of three different time periods of the same acquisition). Time is indicated in seconds. (B) Sporozoites gliding within the skin of the tail. i: Colored tracks of 8 gliding parasite over 350 s (see Video S1). Scale bar: 25 µm. ii: projection of three different time periods within one acquisition and the pseudo-colored merge (RGB) of these projections. White arrowheads point to the same parasite during the acquisition; black arrowheads point to the paths of other parasites. Time is indicated in seconds. (C) Automatically detected motility patterns of sporozoites imaged in the skin of the ear (n = 589) and tail (n = 164) showing a preference for meandering and linear movement patterns in the ear and tail, respectively, *** indicates P<0.001, motility patterns: nm = non motile; c = circling; l = linear; m = meandering. (D) Speed plot showing the median speed distribution of all tracked parasites imaged at 0.2 Hz in the dermis of ear or tail; whiskers and box indicate 97.5% and 50% of all values, respectively; horizontal bar: median (ear: 0.91 µm/s; tail: 1.10 µm/s; * indicates P<0.05).