2023/03/20 by Pablo Rojas, Rojas, Pablo, Oreste Piro +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Neuroscience · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Photoreceptor and optogenetics research #Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms #thermodynamics and calorimetric analyses
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2303.11406
openalex publication_date 2023/03/20 · openalex created_date 2023/03/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Common models of circadian rhythms are constructed as compartmental reactions of well mixed biochemicals involving a negative-feedback loop containing several intermediate reaction steps in order to enable oscillations. Spatial transport of reactants is mimicked as an extra compartmental reaction step. In this letter, we show that a single activation-repression biochemical reaction pair is enough to produce sustained oscillations, if the sites of both reactions are spatially separated and molecular transport is mediated by diffusion. Our proposed scenario is the simplest possible one in terms of the participating chemical reactions and provides a conceptual basis for understanding biological oscillations and triggering in-vitro assays aimed at constructing minimal clocks.