Glycolytic oscillations in spatially ordered interacting cells

Glycolytic oscillations, and in particular the synchronisation of these oscillations, have been intensively analysed experimentally as well as theoretically. Because the cellular membrane is permeable for products of glycolysis as acetaldehyde/pyruvate, cells can interact via exchanging these compounds. Various theoretical models have been proposed to explain the synchronisation of glycolytic oscillations in yeast cells as observed experimentally [2]. There are, however, a number of discrepancies between model predictions and experimental results. For example, in existing models synchronisation occurs much slower than observed in populations of yeast cells [3]. In extension to previous models which considered stirred cell suspensions we study oscillations in spatially ordered cells. We aim to reproduce data of experiments where glucose is added to starved cells in a limited region of the cell layer initiating in this way a wave resulting from the propagation of glycolytic oscillations [1].