Understanding the Functional Roles of Multiple Extracellular Domains in Cell Adhesion Molecules with a Coarse-Grained Model.

ABSTRACT: Intercellular contacts in multicellular organisms are maintained by membrane receptors called cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), which are expressed on cell surfaces. One interesting feature of CAMs is that almost all of their extracellular regions contain repeating copies of structural domains. It is not clear why so many extracellular domains need to be evolved through natural selection. We tackled this problem by computational modeling. A generic model of CAMs was constructed based on the domain organization of neuronal CAM, which is engaged in maintaining neuron-neuron adhesion in central nervous system. By placing these models on a cell-cell interface, we developed a Monte-Carlo simulation algorithm that incorporates both molecular factors including conformational changes of CAMs and cel

SUBMITTER: Chen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5989558 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature