Stability of adhesion clusters under constant force

Abstract

We solve the stochastic equations for a cluster of parallel bonds with shared constant loading, rebinding and the completely dissociated state as an absorbing boundary. In the small force regime, cluster lifetime grows only logarithmically with bond number for weak rebinding, but exponentially for strong rebinding. Therefore rebinding is essential to ensure physiological lifetimes. The number of bonds decays exponentially with time for most cases, but in the intermediate force regime, a small increase in loading can lead to much faster decay. This effect might be used by cell-matrix adhesions to induce signaling events through cytoskeletal loading.