Cooperative dynamics of curvature-sensing proteins control cytoskeletal assembly near the plasma membrane

Abstract

The plasma membrane, demarcating the shape of a cell, works together with the cellular cytoskeleton to carry out many important functions such as mechanosensing. To study these phenomena, we have recently introduced a microscopic computational model, membrane-MEDYAN, which enables simulations of complex cytoskeleton-membrane dynamics. In the current work, we introduced a capability of treating stochastic reaction-diffusion processes on the membrane manifold, as well as adsorption and desorption exchange of proteins between the membrane and the enclosed cytosolic volume.