Effects of receptor clustering on ligand dissociation kinetics: Theory and simulations

Files
TR Number
Date
2005-12-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Cell Press
Abstract

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 lipid rafts. In vitro experiments show that disruption of rafts significantly alters the dissociation of fibrbroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) from heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs), co-receptors for FGF-2. In this article, we develop a continuum stochastic formalism to address how receptor clustering might influence ligand rebinding. We find that clusters reduce the effective dissociation rate dramatically when the clusters are dense and the overall surface density of receptors is low. The effect is much less pronounced in the case of high receptor density and shows nonmonotonic behavior with time. These predictions are verified via lattice Monte Carlo simulations. Comparison with FGF-2-HSPG experimental results is made and suggests that the theory could be used to analyze similar biological systems. We further present an analysis of an additional cooperative internal-diffusion model that might be used by other systems to increase ligand retention when simple rebinding is insufficient.

Description
Keywords
Fibroblast-growth-factor, Heparan-sulfate proteoglycans, Cell-surface, Receptors, Lipid rafts, Bound receptors, Rate constants, Binding, Membranes, Diffusion, Cholesterol
Citation
Gopalakrishnan, M; Forsten-Williams, K; Nugent, MA; et al., "Effects of receptor clustering on ligand dissociation kinetics: Theory and simulations," Biophysical Journal 89(6), 3686-3700 (2005); doi: 10.1529/biophysj.105.065300