Dresden 2006 – scientific programme

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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 40: Poster Session II

AKB 40.62: Poster

Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 16:30–19:30, P3

Close contact fluctuations: the seeding of signalling domains in the immunlogical synapse — •Amit Chattopadhyay — Universita’ degli Studi di Padova, Facolta’ di Ingegneria, Dipartimento di Fisica G. Galilei, Via Marzolo 8, 35131 Padova, Italy

We study the effects of thermal membrane fluctuations on the size and density of regions of close contact in cell:cell contact interfaces. Such regions are vital for the generation of early signals in T-cell contact interfaces and for the stabilisation of the contact and development of an immunological synapse. Our calculations indicate that these regions are on the nanometer scale, while the corresponding density rapidly decays with membrane-membrane separation. Our method is a generalisation of probability of first crossing techniques to a system without reflection symmetry.