Modeling Reaction Kinetics in Low-dimensional Environments with Conformon P Systems: Comparison with Cellular Automata and New Rate Laws

Abstract

Recently it has been shown that simulations of complex biological systems using conformon P systems and cellular automata do not necessarily give the same pre- dictions. To further elucidate these di®erences we simulate a simple model of intracellular reactions involving a single bimolecular reaction occurring on a biological membrane us- ing conformon P systems. We ¯nd that the predictions broadly agree with results from both the theory of ran- dom walks in low-dimensional environments and with previously published simulations using cellular automata. Moreover, a re-analysis of the data enables us to deduce novel rate laws for the kinetics of reactions occurring on biological membranes.