Model for antigen binding by B cell-derived receptors

In this study we investigate receptor–ligand binding in the context of antibody–antigen binding. We established a quantitative mapping between macroscopic binding rates of a deterministic differential equation model and their microscopic equivalents as obtained from simulating the spatiotemporal binding kinetics by a stochastic agent-based model. Furthermore, various properties of B cell-derived receptors like their dimensionality of motion, morphology, and binding valency are considered and their impact on receptor–ligand binding kinetics is investigated. The different morphologies of B cell-derived receptors include simple sperical representations as well as more realistic Y-shaped morphologies. These receptors move in different dimensionalities, i.e. either as membrane-anchored receptors or as soluble antibodies. The mapping of the macroscopic and microscopic binding rates allowed us to quantitatively compare different agent-based model variants for the different types of B cell-derived receptors. Our results indicate that the dimensionality of motion governs the binding kinetics and that this predominant impact is quantitatively compensated by the bivalency of these receptors.

Publications

12312 Next

Posters

12335 Next