TY  - JOUR
A1  - Grebenkov, Denis S.
A1  - Metzler, Ralf
A1  - Oshanin, Gleb
T1  - Distribution of first-reaction times with target regions on boundaries of shell-like domains
JF  - New Journal of Physics (NJP)
N2  - We study the probability density function (PDF) of the first-reaction times between a diffusive ligand and a membrane-bound, immobile imperfect target region in a restricted 'onion-shell' geometry bounded by two nested membranes of arbitrary shapes. For such a setting, encountered in diverse molecular signal transduction pathways or in the narrow escape problem with additional steric constraints, we derive an exact spectral form of the PDF, as well as present its approximate form calculated by help of the so-called self-consistent approximation. For a particular case when the nested domains are concentric spheres, we get a fully explicit form of the approximated PDF, assess the accuracy of this approximation, and discuss various facets of the obtained distributions. Our results can be straightforwardly applied to describe the PDF of the terminal reaction event in multi-stage signal transduction processes.
KW  - diffusion
KW  - first-passage time
KW  - first-reaction time
KW  - shell-like geometries
KW  - approximate methods
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac4282
SN  - 1367-2630
VL  - 2021
SP  - 1
EP  - 23
PB  - IOP Publishing
CY  - London
ET  - 23
ER  -