Modelling Ammonium Transporters in Arbuscular Mycorrhiza Symbiosis

The Stochastic Calculus of Wrapped Compartments (SCWC) is a recently proposed variant of the Stochastic Calculus of Looping Sequences (SCLS), a language for the representation and simulation of biological systems. In this work we apply SCWC to model a newly discovered ammonium transporter. This transporter is believed to play a fundamental role for plant mineral acquisition, which takes place in the arbuscular mycorrhiza, the most wide-spread plant-fungus symbiosis on earth. Investigating this kind of symbiosis is considered one of the most promising ways to develop methods to nurture plants in more natural manners, avoiding the complex chemical productions used nowadays to produce artificial fertilizers. In our experiments the passage of NH3 / NH + 4 from the fungus to the plant has been dissected in known and hypothetical mechanisms; with the model so far we have been able to simulate the behavior of the system under different conditions. Our simulations confirmed some of the latest experimental results about the LjAMT2;2 transporter. Moreover, by comparing the behaviour of LjAMT2;2 with the behaviour of another ammonium transporter which exists in plants, viz. LjAMT1;1, our simulations support an hypothesis about why LjAMT2;2 is so selectively expressed in arbusculated cells.