Abstract
The combination of single cells to form doublets is regarded as the rate-limiting step of flocculation and requires the presence of surface proteins in active form. The process of activation of the flocculation proteins of yeast cells is described in the frame of the autocrine interaction regime (Science 224 (1984) 1312). The influence of several effectors (the cell efficiency to use sugars, the calcium content in the external medium and the probability that free cells collide each other under thermal motion conditions) on the initial rate of flocculation and on the fraction of remaining free cells in the steady state is briefly discussed in the paper. The present model offers a useful tool for further quantitative investigations in this topic. Also, it indicates qualitatively a way in which the regulation of flocculation might be controlled at the level of the expression of cell-surface activation abilities. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 139-145 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | BioSystems |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2000 |
Keywords
- Autocrine binding
- Flocculation
- Lectin hypothesis
- Yeast
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Statistics and Probability
- Modeling and Simulation
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- Applied Mathematics