Modeling Endocytosis of a Clathrin-Coated Plaque

• Main Authors: Yu-Hsien Lin, 林育賢
• Other Authors: Hsuan-Yi Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/94943887709613131662

碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 生物物理研究所 === 100 === In the early stage of clathrin mediated endocytosis, clathrin proteins aggregate and form a lattice on the cell membrane, which then pinches off and becomes a traffic vesicle. In this way, extracellular materials and an area of membrane are delivered into the cell. There are two distinct shapes of clathrin lattices, one is curved ``coated pit", the other one is flat ``coated plaque''. Experimental works indicate that a clathrin plaque only grows on the ventral membrane of a cell which is adhered to the substrate. The plaque-coated membrane stays on the substrate for several minutes before being internalized. The growth of the actin network around a plaque is also essential for the formation and internalization of the plaque. From these fact we build a model in which the release of the elastic free energy of the growing actin network lead to the detachment of the clathrin plaque from the substrate. We find that a plaque is compressed by the growing actin network and tends to internalize when the growing actin network reaches a critical size. We also find that a large plaque is relatively stable and live longer than a small plaque.