Segregation of receptor-ligand complexes in cell adhesion zones: Phase diagrams and the role of thermal membrane roughness

Abstract

The adhesion zone of immune cells, the 'immunological synapse', exhibits characteristic domains of receptor-ligand complexes. The domain formation is probably caused by a length difference of the receptor-ligand complexes, and has been investigated in experiments in which T cells adhere to supported membranes with anchored ligands. For supported membranes with two types of anchored ligands, MHCp and ICAM1, which bind to the T-cell receptor (TCR) and the receptor LFA1 in the cell membrane, the coexistence of domains of the TCR-MHCp and LFA1-ICAM1 complexes in the cell adhesion zone has been observed for a wide range of ligand concentrations and affinities. For supported membranes with long and short ligands that bind to the same cell receptor CD2, in contrast, domain coexistence has been observed for a quite narrow ratio of ligand concentrations. In this paper, we determine detailed phase diagrams for cells adhering to supported membranes with a statistical-physical model of cell adhesion. We find a characteristic difference between the adhesion scenarios in which two types of ligands in a supported membrane bind (i) to the same cell receptor or (ii) to two different cell receptors, which helps us to explain the experimental observations. Our phase diagrams fully include thermal shape fluctuations of the cell membranes on nanometer scales, which lead to a critical point for the domain formation and to a cooperative binding of the receptors and ligands. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.