Nucleation of Ligand-Receptor Domains in Membrane Adhesion

Bihr T, Seifert U, Smith AS (2012)

Publication Language: English

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Journal article, Letter

Publication year: 2012

Journal

Physical Review Letters American Physical Society

Publisher: AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Book Volume: 109

Article Number: 258101

Journal Issue: 25

URI: http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.258101

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.258101

Abstract

We present a comprehensive model for the nucleation of domains in membrane adhesion. We determine the critical number of bonds in a nucleus and calculate the probability distribution of nucleation time from a discrete master equation. The latter is characterized by only four effective rates, which account for cooperative effects between bonds. We validate our model by finding excellent agreement with extensive Langevin simulations. In the range of parameters typical for cell adhesion, we find the critical number of bonds to be small. Furthermore, we find a characteristic separation between the bonds at which nucleation is particularly fast, pointing to potential regulatory mechanisms that could be used to control the cell recognition processes. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.258101

Authors with CRIS profile

Ana-Suncana Smith Physics Underlying Life Science

Additional Organisation(s)

Exzellenz-Cluster Engineering of Advanced Materials

Related research project(s)

None - None

Involved external institutions

Universität Stuttgart DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Bihr, T., Seifert, U., & Smith, A.-S. (2012). Nucleation of Ligand-Receptor Domains in Membrane Adhesion. Physical Review Letters, 109(25). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.258101

MLA:

Bihr, Timo, Udo Seifert, and Ana-Suncana Smith. "Nucleation of Ligand-Receptor Domains in Membrane Adhesion." Physical Review Letters 109.25 (2012).

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