Chemical model

From PBDN

A chemical model is a mathematical description of a system of related chemical reactions. In this project two different models, each of which models an important basic reaction in cell biology, were used: the birth-death model and the metabolite-enzyme model.

In a cell, there are countless chemical species (not to be confused with a zoological species) and countless chemical reactions occurring between them. The individuals of a particular species may be as simple as single atoms, or as complex as entire proteins, but the individuals belonging to a particular species are all alike.

A model looks at a small number of related chemical reactions. Each reaction has reactants and products. The other species in the cell, which are neither reactants nor products in one of the chemical reactions of interest, are simply lumped together as belonging to an undifferentiated "soup".

As an example, the circadian rhythm is widely known as the internal clock of all living cells. It involves a small number of the different species in a cell. One model of the circadian rhythm treats it as involving a system of 18 reactions involving 9 different species. The real system of reactions that occurs in real cells may involve more reactions and more species, and the exact compounds that are involved are different in a mouse cell than they are in a tree cell, but the model gives good results and helps us to understand how the circadian rhythm works.

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