A toy model of immunological receptor activation

Yan-Ru Chen^1*, Hsuan-Yi Chen^1,2

¹Department of Physics, National Central University, Taoyuan city, Taiwan
²Institute of Physics, Academic Sinica, Taipei City, Taiwan

* Presenter:Yan-Ru Chen, email:rubby860729@gmail.com

Inspired by the experimental studies of T cell receptor activation, we study the response of a two-dimensional receptor cluster to its agonist ligand in an environment containing incorrect ligands. We assume that a receptor in the bound state can be activated or unbind with its ligand, and there is coupling between the binding states of the neighboring receptors. First, we show that specificity can be achieved by the kinetic proofreading mechanism. By use of the kinetic proofreading mechanism, the receptors can reach specificity. However, in the presence of a correct ligand due to the long lifetime of the correct ligand, and with the help of the coupling between binding states of the receptors, the activation signal can be enhanced significantly. Also, the activation time is comparable to the T cell receptors. Our study provides a possible physical mechanism for the activation of immunological receptors.

Keywords: sensory system, kinetic proofreading, receptor-receptor coupling, statistical mechanics