Dresden 2014 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 20: Cell adhesion, mechanics and migration I
BP 20.9: Talk
Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 15:45–16:00, HÜL 386
Modeling ring formation in cell adhesion — •Daniel Schmidt1,2, Timo Bihr1,2, Udo Seifert2, and Ana-Sunčana Smith1 — 1Inst. f. Theor. Physik and Excellence Cluster: Engineering of Advanced Materials, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg — 2II. Inst. f. Theor. Physik, Universität Stuttgart
Cellular adhesion is mediated by pairs of adhesion molecules which form bonds. A famous example is the immune synapse where the adhesion of membranes of antigen presenting cells and different cells of the immune system takes place. The key step in this process involves two pairs of binding partners which upon recognition form a ring pattern, in a process that has not yet been fully understood. We study necessary conditions for the formation of rings in a minimal model within a newly developed Monte Carlo scheme. This simulation framework allows us to simulate the entire adhesion process on experimentally observed time and length scales while maintaining the full information about membrane transmitted cooperative effects between individual adhesion molecules. We show that the competition between the recruitment of adhesion molecules into the zone of contact between two cells and the binding kinetics between pairs of binders is sufficient to trigger this particular pattern formation. We find that the ring is transient if one of the binders is immobilized before molecular recognition takes place. However, if both adhesion molecules are mobile, the ring is stabilized through by membrane induced correlations and the ring becomes meta-stable. We compare our results to alternative theoretical models and to experiments in cell-mimetic systems.