Mathematical Biology Seminar
Sean Means
Sandia National Laboratories
Near or far: influential ion channel neighbors on the endoplasmic
reticulum
Monday, April 3, 2006
3:00 p.m., Room 121
The spatial distributions of ionic transporters (and myriad other
mechanisms) in biological cell systems and their impact on cellular
function is of great interest. Localization of such transporters relative
to each other and neighboring molecular machinery can significantly
modulate cellular response. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is an
intracellular organelle involved in maintenance of cytosolic calcium
concentrations which determine a plethora of cellular activity. We present
results from a model of a particular calcium ion channel, the
inositol-triphosphate receptor (IP3R), in distinct spatial distributions on
the surface of the ER and the resulting impact of these distributions on
intraluminal ER calcium. The model is a reaction-diffusion representation
approximated with unstructured finite element methods on a high-resolution
reconstruction of an ER section. With all other aspects of the model
equivalent, we show distinct spatial distributions of the IP3R vary release
of calcium from the ER lumenal store.
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Mathematical Biology Program
Department of Mathematics
University of Utah
155 South 1400 East Room 233
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
rasmusse@math.utah.edu
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