Membrane fission versus cell division: When membrane proliferation is not enough

Abstract

Cell division is a process that produces two or more cells from one cell by replicating the original chromosomes so that each daughter cell gets a copy of them. Membrane fission is a process by which a biological membrane is split into two new ones in suchamanner that the contents of the initial membrane get distributedor separated among the new membranes. Inspired by these biological phenomena, new kinds of models we reconsidered in the discipline of Membrane Computing, in the context of P systems with active membranes, and tissue P systems that use symport/antiport rules, respectively. This paper combines the two approaches: cell-like P systems with symport/antiport rules and membrane separation are studied, from a computational complexity perspective.Specifically, the role of the environment in the context of cell-like P systems withmembrane separation is established, and additional borderlines between tractability and NP-hardness are summarized.