Figure 2

Simulation environment. Top panel: On the left is a cartoon view of the 2D membrane of area S _t . Ligand particles are crosses, and the green boxes are receptors (of affinity zone S _r ). Receptors are fixed, and ligands undergo a 2D Brownian motion. Bottom panel: cartoon view of the different experiments performed. The spatial configuration of the receptors is modified and the computation of the occupation is performed. Three spatial configuration are tested: A) Evenly spaced receptors - homogeneous repartition. B) Over stacked receptors: the clusters are evenly spaced, but contain a certain number of sites C) Non-overlapping spatial configuration. The affinity zones are contiguous but do not overlap. Clusters of n receptors are evenly placed on the membrane.