Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 2: Membranes and Vesicles I
BP 2.3: Talk
Monday, March 18, 2024, 10:00–10:15, H 2032
Effect of the receptor nanoclustering on the activation of natural killer cells through biomechanical feedback — •Piotr Nowakowski1, Ashish Pandey2, Carlos Ureña Martin2, Muhammad Abu Ahmad3, Avishay Edri3, Esti Toledo2, Sivan Tzadka2, Jonas Walther4, Guillaume Le Saux2, Angel Porgador3, Mark Schvartzman2, and Ana-Sunčana Smith4,1 — 1Division of Physical Chemistry, Institut Ruđer Bošković, Zagreb, Croatia — 2Department of Materials Engineering, Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel — 3Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel — 4Institut für Theoretische Physik, IZNF, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
Natural killer (NK) cells are part of the immune system responsible for rapid recognition and elimination of virus-infected or tumor cells. The exact mechanism of this recognition is not yet known but it is expected to be related to the observed formation of nanoclusters of receptors on the membrane of NK cell. We propose a phenomenological model of activity of NK cell based on biomechanical feedback between number of connected receptors, activity of NK cell, and fluctuations of the membrane. We test the model in experiment: using nanolithography we create patterns of ligands of various shapes and measure the activity of cells after binding to them. Our theoretical model qualitatively explanes the dependence of activity on the structure of nanoclusters and overall density of ligands that is observed in the experiment.
Keywords: natural killer cells; immunodomains; cell activation; nanoclusters; statistical physics