Enhanced reaction kinetics in biological cells

Enhanced reaction kinetics in biological cells

The cell cytoskeleton is a striking example of " active " medium driven out-of-equilibrium by ATP hydrolysis 1. Such activity has been shown recently to have a spectacular impact on the mechanical and rheological properties of the cellular medium : a generic tracer particle freely diffuses as in a standard equilibrium medium, but also intermittently binds with random interaction times to motor ...

Modelling reaction kinetics inside cells.

In the past decade, advances in molecular biology such as the development of non-invasive single molecule imaging techniques have given us a window into the intricate biochemical activities that occur inside cells. In this chapter we review four distinct theoretical and simulation frameworks: (i) non-spatial and deterministic, (ii) spatial and deterministic, (iii) non-spatial and stochastic and...

Reaction Kinetics in Polymer Melts

We study the reaction kinetics of end-functionalized polymer chains dispersed in an unreactive polymer melt. Starting from an infinite hierarchy of coupled equations for many-chain correlation functions, a closed equation is derived for the 2nd order rate constant k after postulating simple physical bounds. Our results generalize previous 2-chain treatments (valid in dilute reactants limit) by ...

Reaction Kinetics in Restricted Spaces

Reactions in restricted spaces rarely get stirred vigorously by convection and are thus controlled by diffusion. Furthermore, the compactness of the Brownian motion leads to both anomalous diffusion and anomalous reaction kinetics. Elementary binary reactions of the type A + A + Products, A + B + Products, and A + C + C + Products are discussed theoretically for both batch and steady-state cond...

Diffusion-Controlled Reaction Kinetics