Effective reaction rates for diffusion-limited reaction cycles

J Chem Phys. 2015 Dec 7;143(21):215102. doi: 10.1063/1.4936131.

Abstract

Biological signals in cells are transmitted with the use of reaction cycles, such as the phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycle, in which substrate is modified by antagonistic enzymes. An appreciable share of such reactions takes place in crowded environments of two-dimensional structures, such as plasma membrane or intracellular membranes, and is expected to be diffusion-controlled. In this work, starting from the microscopic bimolecular reaction rate constants and using estimates of the mean first-passage time for an enzyme-substrate encounter, we derive diffusion-dependent effective macroscopic reaction rate coefficients (EMRRC) for a generic reaction cycle. Each EMRRC was found to be half of the harmonic average of the microscopic rate constant (phosphorylation c or dephosphorylation d), and the effective (crowding-dependent) motility divided by a slowly decreasing logarithmic function of the sum of the enzyme concentrations. This implies that when c and d differ, the two EMRRCs scale differently with the motility, rendering the steady-state fraction of phosphorylated substrate molecules diffusion-dependent. Analytical predictions are verified using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations on the two-dimensional triangular lattice at the single-molecule resolution. It is demonstrated that the proposed formulas estimate the steady-state concentrations and effective reaction rates for different sets of microscopic reaction rates and concentrations of reactants, including a non-trivial example where with increasing diffusivity the fraction of phosphorylated substrate molecules changes from 10% to 90%.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adenosine Triphosphate / metabolism
  • Animals
  • Biocatalysis*
  • Computer Simulation*
  • Diffusion
  • Humans
  • Kinetics
  • Models, Biological*
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Phosphoric Monoester Hydrolases / metabolism*
  • Phosphorylation
  • Protein Kinases / metabolism*

Substances

  • Adenosine Triphosphate
  • Protein Kinases
  • Phosphoric Monoester Hydrolases