Elastohydrodynamics and Kinetics of Protein Patterning in the Immunological Synapse
Fig 3
(a)-(c) Simulation of Eqs 1–4 with B = 2 × 10−9 and τ = 15 and the other dimensionless numbers are reported in Table 2.
(a) Contour plots of the time history of the pressure (p), along with the velocity (−h2∇p). The second row shows the corresponding protein pattern of TCR-pMHC and LFA-ICAM, see Fig 3 for color scale. At short times (t < 4 min) the nucleation and coalescence of protein domains generates a local flow field. At late times (t ≥ 12min) a global centripetal flow is generated that “compress” the TCR cluster radially generating a “bulls-eye”-like protein pattern, which becomes unstable at t ≈ 60min. (b-c)The total number of attached receptors of (b) TCR-pMHC and (c) LFA-ICAM. (b-c) Direct comparison between the total number of attached TCR in the IS in simulation and in experiment [3] shows that the results are in good agreement for t < 20 min. This suggests that passive dynamics suffices to describe the short-time formation and organization of protein domains while the long-time IS dynamics and its stability is likely controlled by active processes.