title: A kinetic model of the agglutination process.
abstract: We propose a kinetic model of the aggregation process in a system consisting of two different types of particles. Aggregating particles (cells) are polyvalent and bear on the surface a huge number of binding sites for the other type of particles, ligands. The ligand is bivalent and has two identical active sites for binding to cells. The cross-linking of the cells by the ligands causes the aggregation phenomenon called agglutination. We obtained the analytical solution of this model task describing the time dependence of the aggregate mean size versus the composition of the system. The comparison of the analytical solution with the experimental data for the agglutination of bacterial cells by bivalent antibodies shows that the main factors affecting agglutination were correctly taken into account.
authors.affiliation: Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow.
authors.forename: E B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Dolgosheina
authors.lastname: Karulin AYu
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Bobylev
mesh_terms: D001422:Bacterial Adhesion / Q000502:physiology; D002449:Cell Aggregation / Q000502:physiology*; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological