SESZIONE DI TORINO
A Statistical Mechanics model of directional sensing of eukaryotic cells is presented. The model captures the physical mechanism lying behind the details of the biological process. A cell begins to move in response to an external signal in its surrounding environment. This is usually a chemical signal detected by receptor proteins located on the cell membrane, and transmitted by them to the cell interior via signaling cascades. A chemical phase separation process lies at the heart of directional sensing, taking place on the inner surface of the cell membrane. By making the simplest assumption that the dynamics can be derivable from free energy minimization, a lattice-gas model based on an Hamiltonian formalism it is derived. It explains in a natural and simple way the main features of phenomenology of the process. Hamiltonian approach provides a synthetic picture to describe the system and it is also amenable to develop an analytical study. Is also presented a study of the Hamiltonian in the framework of the N-large model.

DATA: 16-10-2008