Platelet-tethered treponemes experience reduced displacement and a lower speed than non-interacting treponemes.

An overlay of several video microscopy frames demonstrates the reduced speed and displacement experienced by a treponeme (green) that interacted with a slide-adhered platelet (asterisk). This interaction reduced its overall speed to 3.64 μm/sec and displacement to 48.64 μm (green dotted line) compared with a treponeme that did not interact (cyan) which has a speed of 8.73 μm/sec and displacement of 82.98 μm (cyan dotted line). Treponemes engaged in stationary adhesion (magenta arrowheads) maintained attachment when slide movement induced plasma movement. White arrow indicates the direction of flow. Scale bar = 5 μm.