Work

Complete integrability of information processing by biochemical reactions

Year: 2016

Type: article

Abstract: Statistical mechanics provides an effective framework to investigate information processing in biochemical reactions. Within such framework far-reaching analogies are established among (anti-) cooperative collective behaviors in chemical kinetics, (anti-)ferromagnetic spin models in statistical mechanics and operational amplifiers/flip-flops in cybernetics. The underlying modeling - based on spin systems - has been proved to be accurate for a wide class of systems matching classical (e.g. Michaelis-Menten, Hill, Adair) scenarios in the infinite-size approximation. However, the current research in biochemical information processing has been focusing on systems involving a relatively small number of units, where this approximation is no longer valid. Here we show that the whole statistical mechanical description of reaction kinetics can be re-formulated via a mechanical analogy - based on completely integrable hydrodynamic-type systems of PDEs - which provides explicit finite-size solutions, matching recently investigated phenomena (e.g. noise-induced cooperativity, stochastic bi-stability, quorum sensing). The resulting picture, successfully tested against a broad spectrum of data, constitutes a neat rationale for a numerically effective and theoretically consistent description of collective behaviors in biochemical reactions.

Source: Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/srep36314

Authors: Elena Agliari, Adriano Barra, Lorenzo Dello Schiavo, Antonio Moro

Institutions: Istituto Nazionale di Alta Matematica Francesco Severi, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Bonn, Northumbria University

Language: English

Topic: Nonlinear Dynamics and Pattern Formation

Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,690