Related papers: Coarsening and accelerated equilibration in mass-c…
Receptor-ligand binding is a critical first step in signal transduction and the duration of the interaction can impact signal generation. In mammalian cells, clustering of receptors may be facilitated by heterogeneous zones of lipids, known…
As a response to ligand binding, transmembrane cell receptors often enhance their clustering, or oligomerization, during the signalling process. Here we present a statistical mechanical model which combines the aspects of clustering and…
How do phase separated cellular structures set their size? To elucidate this, we study the dynamics and steady states of a phase separating nucleator that is advected by the self-straining cytoskeletal network which it nucleates. We find…
Intracellular signaling often arises from ligand-induced oligomerization of cell surface receptors. This oligomerization or clustering process is fundamentally a cooperative behavior between near-neighbor receptor molecules; the properties…
Protein aggregation on the plasma membrane (PM) is of critical importance to many cellular processes such as cell adhesion, endocytosis, fibrillar conformation, and vesicle transport. Lateral diffusion of protein aggregates or clusters on…
Cells use surface receptors to estimate the concentration of external ligands. Limits on the accuracy of such estimations have been well studied for pairs of ligand and receptor species. However, the environment typically contains many…
A hierarchical system of equations is introduced to describe dynamics of `sizes' of infinite clusters which coagulate and fragmentate with homogeneous rates of certain form. We prove that this system of equations is solved weakly by…
Single receptor-ligand bonds have finite lifetimes, so that biological systems can dynamically react to changes in their environment. In cell adhesion, adhesion bonds usually act cooperatively in adhesion clusters. Outside the cellular…
Adhesion interactions mediated by multiple bond types are relevant for many biological and soft matter systems, including the adhesion of biological cells and functionalized colloidal particles to various substrates. To elucidate advantages…
We model the kinetics of ligand-receptor systems, where multiple ligands may bind and unbind to the receptor, either randomly or in a specific order. Equilibrium occupation and first occurrence of complete filling of the receptor are…
We investigate a system of interacting clusters evolving through mass exchange and supplemented by input of small clusters. Three possibilities depending on the rate of exchange generically occur when input is homogeneous: continuous…
We examine the classic problem of homogeneous nucleation and growth by deriving and analyzing a fully discrete stochastic master equation. Upon comparison with results obtained from the corresponding mean-field Becker-D\"{o}ring equations…
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…
We investigate heterogeneous and homogeneous nucleation in nearest-neighbor and long-range Ising models for various quench depths. We find that the system has a true crossover from heterogeneous to homogeneous nucleation for increasing…
A quantitative understanding of how cells interact with their extracellular matrix via molecular bonds is fundamental for many important processes in cell biology and engineering. In these interactions, the deformability of cells and matrix…
Transient bonds between fast linkers and slower particles are widespread in physical and biological systems. In spite of their diverse structure and function, a commonality is that the linkers diffuse on timescales much faster compared to…
We introduce a derangement model of ligand-receptor binding that allows us to quantitatively frame the question "How can ligands seek out and bind to their optimal receptor sites in a sea of other competing ligands and suboptimal receptor…
Non-equilibrium cluster-cluster aggregation of particles diffusing in or at the cell membrane has been hypothesized to lead to domains of finite size in different biological contexts such as lipid rafts, cell adhesion complexes, or…
We develop a model in the framework of nuclear fragmentation at thermodynamic equilibrium which can be mapped onto an Ising model with constant magnetization. We work out the thermodynamic properties of the model as well as the properties…
Bistability is a major mechanism for cellular decision making and usually results from positive feedback in biochemical control systems. Here we show theoretically that bistability between unbound and bound states of adhesion clusters…