Neurotransmitter receptor molecules, concentrated in postsynaptic domains
along with scaffold and a number of other molecules, are key regulators of
signal transmission across synapses. Employing experiment and theory, we
develop a quantitative description of synaptic receptor domains in terms of a
reaction-diffusion model. We show that interactions between only receptor and
scaffold molecules, together with the rapid diffusion of receptors on the cell
membrane, are sufficient for the formation and stable characteristic size of
synaptic receptor domains. Our work reconciles long-term stability of synaptic
receptor domains with rapid turnover and diffusion of individual receptors.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Supplementary Materia
