QUANTITATIVE-EVALUATION OF THE KINETICS O F THE LIPID PROBE REDISTRIBUTION BETWEEN FUSING CELLS

Redistribution a fluorescent lipid probe in a cell-cell fusion systems was analyzed by solving numerically the time-dependent diffusion equa tions on two spheres connected by a cylindrical pore. The half-times o f the process were calculated for different values of the diffusion ko efficient D-p for a lipid probe in the pore. It was shown that the kin etics of the redistribution is relatively insensitive to the length an d radius of the pore; whereas D-p significantly affects the redistribu tion rate constant. Based on the results of the numerical analysis, th e minimal lag time between the start of the process and the appearance of experimentally measurable quanties of the probe in the acceptor ce ll was roughly estimated.