Computing the Threshold of the Influence of Intercellular Nanotubes on Cell-to-Cell Communication Integrity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a deterministic model to analyze how tunneling nanotubes affect cell-to-cell communication, using matrix nearness and pseudospectra to determine the influence threshold in different network types.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach combining Michaelis-Menten dynamics with matrix nearness problems to quantify TNT influence thresholds on cellular communication.

Findings

Thresholds computed for Newman-Gastner and Erdős-Rényi networks.

Pseudospectra analysis reveals stability margins of intercellular exchange.

Model links nanotube influence to network stability metrics.

Abstract

We examine the threshold of the influence of the tunneling nanotubes (TNTs) on the cell-to-cell communication integrity. A deterministic model is introduced with the Michaelis-Menten dynamics and the intercellular exchange of substance. The influence of TNTs are considered as a functional perturbation of the main communication and treated as the matrix nearness problems. We analyze communication integrity in terms of the \emph{pseudospectra} of the exchange, to find the \emph{distance to instability}. The threshold of TNTs influence is computed for Newman-Gastner and Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi gap junction (GJ) networks.