Regensburg 2019 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 6: Poster I

BP 6.20: Poster

Montag, 1. April 2019, 17:30–19:30, Poster B2

Towards a more realistic model of adhesion clusters under force — •Andrea Bräutigam, Gerhard Gompper, and Benedikt Sabass — Theoretical Soft Matter and Biophysics, Institute of Complex Systems and Institute of Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Adhesion domains play a crucial role in many cellular processes such as cell migration or communication with surrounding tissue. These usually localized contacts to the extracellular environment are composed of organized aggregates of proteins that form a dynamic cluster sensitive to internal and external signals. Especially under the influence of force, adhesion domains show a rich behavior affecting cluster size, constitution and lifetime. Although the complex system of adhesion sites and their response to force are not fully understood, they apparently have high importance for cellular integrity and mechanical sensing.

Here we present a minimal model for an adhesion cluster of parallel bonds under force. The state of the cluster evolves stochastically through (un)binding events and conformational changes of single bonds until the system eventually ruptures. In our analysis, cluster dynamics is described by an absorbing Markov Process. We derive a mean field approximation which reduces the complexity of the system significantly and allows further studies. In addition, statistically correct trajectories of adhesion clusters with different sizes are generated in silico. The approximative system and simulation results show good agreement and provide insight into force-dependent characteristics, such as cluster size and lifetime.