Skip Navigation



Mathematical Medicine and Biology Advance Access published online on March 22, 2007
Mathematical Medicine and Biology, doi:10.1093/imammb/dqm002
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
24/3/251    most recent
dqm002v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Vaidya, N. K.
Right arrow Articles by Takagi, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Vaidya, N. K.
Right arrow Articles by Takagi, S.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. All rights reserved.

Modelling HA protein-mediated interaction between an influenza virus and a healthy cell: pre-fusion membrane deformation

Naveen K. Vaidya{dagger} and Huaxiong Huang{ddagger}

Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, Canada M3J 1P3

Shu Takagi§

Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

{dagger} Email: nvaidya{at}mathstat.yorku.ca

{ddagger} Corresponding author. Email: hhuang{at}mathstat.yorku.ca

§ Email: takagi{at}mech.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Received on 29 August 2006. Revised on 23 January 2007. Accepted on 15 February 2007.


  Abstract

We present a mathematical model for pre-fusion interaction between an influenza virus and a healthy cell. Our model describes the role played by hemagglutinin (HA) protein clusters in bringing the viral membrane into close contact with the host cell membrane as a first step of the fusion process between the two membranes. The viral membrane is modelled as a lipid bilayer with bending rigidity. Using the calculus of variations, we compute the deformation of the viral membrane under the influence of HA protein clusters. Our numerical results support the hypothesis of dimple formation in the fusion site proposed in the literature. The asymmetric nature of the protein molecules due to various reasons such as tilting is the primary cause for the dimple formation. We discuss the effects of spontaneous curvature, the protein cluster radius, fusion-site size and the bending moment exerted by the protein cluster. We also examine the effects of membrane tension and the presence of a host cell on the dimple shape. Our results support previous experimental observations.

Keywords: bending rigidity; equilibrium membrane shape; Euler–Lagrange equations; HA protein; influenza virus; lipid bilayer; membrane pre-fusion


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.