The non-equilibrium and energetic cost of sensory adaptation
- IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Physics Department, Yorktown Heights, NY (United States)
Biological sensory systems respond to external signals in short time and adapt to permanent environmental changes over a longer timescale to maintain high sensitivity in widely varying environments. In this work we have shown how all adaptation dynamics are intrinsically non-equilibrium and free energy is dissipated. We show that the dissipated energy is utilized to maintain adaptation accuracy. A universal relation between the energy dissipation and the optimum adaptation accuracy is established by both a general continuum model and a discrete model i n the specific case of the well-known E. coli chemo-sensory adaptation. Our study suggests that cellular level adaptations are fueled by hydrolysis of high energy biomolecules, such as ATP. The relevance of this work lies on linking the functionality of a biological system (sensory adaptation) with a concept rooted in statistical physics (energy dissipation), by a mathematical law. This has been made possible by identifying a general sensory system with a non-equilibrium steady state (a stationary state in which the probability current is not zero, but its divergence is, see figure), and then numerically and analytically solving the Fokker-Planck and Master Equations which describe the sensory adaptive system. The application of our general results to the case of E. Coli has shed light on why this system uses the high energy SAM molecule to perform adaptation, since using the more common ATP would not suffice to obtain the required adaptation accuracy.
- OSTI ID:
- 21511495
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1332, Issue 1; Conference: 11. Granada seminar on computational and statistical physics, La Herradura (Spain), 13-17 Sep 2010; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3577689; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
GENERAL PHYSICS
ACCURACY
ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS
BIOLOGICAL MODELS
BIOPHYSICS
ENERGY LOSSES
EQUILIBRIUM
FOKKER-PLANCK EQUATION
FREE ENERGY
HYDROLYSIS
MOLECULES
PROBABILITY
SENSITIVITY
SENSORS
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
COMPUTERIZED CONTROL SYSTEMS
CONTROL SYSTEMS
DECOMPOSITION
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ENERGY
EQUATIONS
LOSSES
LYSIS
ON-LINE CONTROL SYSTEMS
ON-LINE SYSTEMS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICS
SOLVOLYSIS
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES