Skip to main content
. 2007 Mar 23;92(12):4196–4208. doi: 10.1529/biophysj.106.094995

FIGURE 5.

FIGURE 5

Effect of membrane deformation on synapse formation. In panels A and B no synapse pattern is observed to form when LFA-1 is in a high-affinity state from the start, both for (A) low BCR affinity and (B) high BCR affinity and high BCR/Ag bond stiffness. In panel C, by contrast, we observe a synapse at low BCR affinity (KA ≈ 106 M−1) provided LFA-1 is initially in a low affinity state and switches to the high-affinity state after t ∼ 30 s (also provided κBA = 160 μN/m). In panel D we see that this mechanism no longer generates a canonical synapse at high BCR affinity (KA ≥ 108 M−1), even when BCR/Ag bond stiffness is 10-fold greater than that of LFA-1/ICAM-1 (κBA = 400 μN/m). These images were taken after T = 105 time steps (100 s) with Inline graphic (KA ≈ 107 M−1), A0 = I0 = 2000 molecules, κLI = 40 μN/m, zeq(BA) = zeq(LI) = 42 nm, pdiff(F) = 1 and pdiff(C) = 0.1, M ∼ 10−12 m4/Js, γ = 24 μN/m, and β = 5 × 10−20 J.