2015/03/06 by Robert G. Endres
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks #Biological system #Biology #Bistability #Diffusion #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #Gene Regulatory Network Analysis #Physics #Statistical physics #Thermodynamics #q-bio.SC
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121681
23 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2015/03/06 · openalex publication_date 2015/04/15 · arxiv updated 2017/02/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Bistability is considered wide-spread among bacteria and eukaryotic cells, useful, e.g., for enzyme induction, bet hedging, and epigenetic switching. However, this phenomenon has mostly been described with deterministic dynamic or well-mixed stochastic models. Here, we map known biological bistable systems onto the well-characterized biochemical Schlögl model, using analytical calculations and stochastic spatiotemporal simulations. In addition to network architecture and strong thermodynamic driving away from equilibrium, we show that bistability requires fine-tuning towards small cell volumes (or compartments) and fast protein diffusion (well mixing). Bistability is thus fragile and hence may be restricted to small bacteria and eukaryotic nuclei, with switching triggered by volume changes during the cell cycle. For large volumes, single cells generally loose their ability for bistable switching and instead undergo a first-order phase transition.