Receptor-ligand rebinding kinetics in confinement

Rebinding kinetics of molecular ligands plays a key role in the operation of biomachinery, from regulatory networks to protein transcription, and is also a key factor in design of drugs and high-precision biosensors. In this study, we investigate initial release and rebinding of ligands to their binding sites grafted on a planar surface, a situation commonly observed in single-molecule experiments and that occurs in vivo, e.g., during exocytosis. Via scaling arguments and molecular dynamic simulations, we analyze the dependence of nonequilibrium rebinding kinetics on two intrinsic length scales: the average separation distance between the binding sites and the total diffusible volume (i.e., height of the experimental reservoir in which diffusion takes place or average distance between receptor-bearing surfaces). We obtain time-dependent scaling laws for on rates and for the cumulative number of rebinding events. For diffusion-limited binding, the (rebinding) on rate decreases with time via multiple power-law regimes before the terminal steady-state (constant on-rate) regime. At intermediate times, when particle density has not yet become uniform throughout the diffusible volume, the cumulative number of rebindings exhibits a novel, to our knowledge, plateau behavior because of the three-dimensional escape process of ligands from binding sites. The duration of the plateau regime depends on the average separation distance between binding sites. After the three-dimensional diffusive escape process, a one-dimensional diffusive regime describes on rates. In the reaction-limited scenario, ligands with higher affinity to their binding sites (e.g., longer residence times) delay entry to the power-law regimes. Our results will be useful for extracting hidden timescales in experiments such as kinetic rate measurements for ligand-receptor interactions in microchannels, as well as for cell signaling via diffusing molecules.