Physics – Condensed Matter – Soft Condensed Matter
Scientific paper
2006-12-18
Eur. Phys. J. E 22: 123-137 (2007)
Physics
Condensed Matter
Soft Condensed Matter
final version after minor revisions
Scientific paper
10.1140/epje/e2007-00019-8
Cells in multicellular organisms adhere to the extracellular matrix through two-dimensional clusters spanning a size range from very few to thousands of adhesion bonds. For many common receptor-ligand systems, the ligands are tethered to a surface via polymeric spacers with finite binding range, thus adhesion cluster stability crucially depends on receptor-ligand distance. We introduce a one-step master equation which incorporates the effect of cooperative binding through a finite number of polymeric ligand tethers. We also derive Fokker-Planck and mean field equations as continuum limits of the master equation. Polymers are modeled either as harmonic springs or as worm-like chains. In both cases, we find bistability between bound and unbound states for intermediate values of receptor-ligand distance and calculate the corresponding switching times. For small cluster sizes, stochastic effects destabilize the clusters at large separation, as shown by a detailed analysis of the stochastic potential resulting from the Fokker-Planck equation.
Erdmann Thorsten
Schwarz Ulrich S.
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