Steady State Configurations of Cells Connected by Cadherin Sites
Date:
Abstract
Many cells employ cadherin complexes (c-sites) on the cell membrane to attach to neighboring cells, as well as integrin complexes (i-sites) to attach to a substrate in order to accomplish cell migration. This paper analyzes a model for the motion of a group of cells connected by c-sites. We begin with two cells connected by a single c-site and analyze the resultant motion of the system. We find that the system is irrotational. We present a result for reducing the number of c-sites in a system with c-sites between pairs of cells. This greatly simplifies the general system, and provides an exact solution for the motion of a system of two cells and several c-sites.
Then a method for analyzing the general cell system is presented. This method involves 0-row-sum, symmetric matrices. A few results are presented as well as conjectures made that we feel will greatly simplify such analyses. The thesis concludes with the proposal of a framework for analyzing a dynamic cell system in which stochastic processes govern the attachment and detachment of c-sites.