Exact and Approximate Approaches for Stochastic Receptor-Ligand Competition Dynamics

Polly-Anne Jeffrey, University of Leeds will be presenting at this event which is part of the Leeds Applied Nonlinear Dynamics seminar series.

Cellular receptors which reside in the cell membrane can bind with ligand molecules in the extracel- lular medium to form monomers. These interactions ultimately determine the fate of a cell through intracellular processes which differ depending on the receptor and ligand combination.

Often, different receptors can bind a common ligand, where the outcome of this interaction differs according to the receptor type. Hence, there is an element of natural competition for a common ligand between recep- tors of different types and the dynamics can be modelled mathematically as a competition process.

Here I will introduce a stochastic competition process which is appropriate for modelling scenarios in which there are low copy numbers of molecules. I will present two methods of analysis of stochastic descriptors for such a process, one a matrix analytic approach and the other a “moderate competition” approximation.