title: Regulation of kinase activity by diffusion and feedback.
abstract: In living cells proteins motilities regulate the spatiotemporal dynamics of molecular pathways. We consider here a reaction-diffusion model of mutual kinase-receptor activation showing that the strength of positive feedback is controlled by the kinase diffusion coefficient. For high diffusion, the activated kinase molecules quickly leave the vicinity of the cell membrane and cannot efficiently activate the receptors. As a result, in a broad range of parameters, the cell can be activated only if the kinase diffusion coefficient is sufficiently small. Our simple model shows that change in the motility of substrates may dramatically influence the cell responses.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Swietokrzyska 21, 00-049 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Bogdan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kazmierczak
authors.forename: Tomasz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lipniacki
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000378:metabolism; D004058:Diffusion; D004789:Enzyme Activation / Q000502:physiology; D025461:Feedback, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D010770:Phosphotransferases / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D011956:Receptors, Cell Surface; D010770:Phosphotransferases