Ligand accumulation in autocrine cell cultures. Author Michael Monine, Alexander Berezhkovskii, Elizabeth Joslin, Steven Wiley, Douglas Lauffenburger, Stanislav Shvartsman Publication Year 2005 Type Journal Article Abstract Cell-culture assays are routinely used to analyze autocrine signaling systems, but quantitative experiments are rarely possible. To enable the quantitative design and analysis of experiments with autocrine cells, we develop a biophysical theory of ligand accumulation in cell-culture assays. Our theory predicts the ligand concentration as a function of time and measurable parameters of autocrine cells and cell-culture experiments. The key step of our analysis is the derivation of the survival probability of a single ligand released from the surface of an autocrine cell. An expression for this probability is derived using the boundary homogenization approach and tested by stochastic simulations. We use this expression in the integral balance equations, from which we find the Laplace transform of the ligand concentration. We demonstrate how the theory works by analyzing the autocrine epidermal growth factor receptor system and discuss the extension of our methods to other experiments with cultured autocrine cells. Keywords Cells, Cultured, Humans, Models, Biological, Models, Theoretical, Cell Culture Techniques, Ligands, Receptor, Epidermal Growth Factor, Time Factors, Culture Media, Autocrine Communication, Biophysics, Kinetics, Epithelial Cells, Biological Transport, Breast, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Epidermal Growth Factor, Nitric Oxide, Physiological Phenomena Journal Biophys J Volume 88 Issue 4 Pages 2384-90 Date Published 04/2005 Alternate Journal Biophys. J. Google ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML