Fig. 5.

In order to explore the mechanism in the dynamic process of oligomerization, we plotted the specific configurations for some representative oligomers under different ligand concentrations and receptor densities. a) Given 450 receptors and 150 trimeric ligands in the systems, most oligomers are formed by complexes with an overall ligand-receptor stoichiometry of 3:3. b) When the number of receptors in the system increased to 600, we found that ligand-unbound receptors presented at the edges of most oligomers through the cis-interactions with ligand-bound receptors. Finally, c) when the number of ligands increased to 300, on the other hand, we found that some oligomers are formed by incomplete complexes in the system.