Team:UANL Mty-Mexico/Modeling/Silica binding

Silica binding

The silica binding module of our project is based on the expression of a chimeric transmembranal protein, OmpA-L2. This chimeric protein is composed by an OmpA domain (the transmembranal domain) and a L2 domain (the silica binding domain).

For the mathematical representation of the binding to silica particles, we work at the population level and take into account a Verhulst logistic function to describe the kinetics of this process. We assume that bacteria are in the stationary phase and that the first binding of a bacterial cell to a silica particle occurs in a faster timescale, so that we can safely assume that it occurs immediately. Finally, the size of the particles is assumed to be greater than that of the cells.