| Abstract |
Complex spatial structures in biology arise from random interactions of molecules. These molecular interactions can be studied using spatial stochastic models, such as Reaction Diffusion Master Equation (RDME), a mesoscopic model that subdivides the spatial domain into smaller, well mixed grid cells, in which the macroscopic diffusion-controlled reactions take place. While RDME has been widely used to study how fluctuations in number of molecules affect spatial patterns, simulations are computationally expensive and it requires a lower bound for grid cell size to avoid an apparent unphysical loss of bimolecular reactions. In this thesis, we propose Gaussian Reaction Diffusion Master Equation (GRDME), a novel model in the RDME framework, based on the discretization of the Laplace operator with Particle Strength Exchange (PSE) method with a Gaussian kernel. We show that GRDME is a computationally efficient model compared to RDME. We further resolve the controversy regarding the loss of bimolecular reactions and argue that GRDME can flexibly bridge the diffusion-controlled and ballistic regimes in mesoscopic simulations involving multiple species. To efficiently simulate GRDME, we develop Gaussian Next Subvolume Method (GNSM). GRDME simulated with GNSM up to six-times lower computational cost for a three-dimensional simulation, providing a significant computational advantage for modeling three-dimensional systems. The computational cost can be further lowered by increasing the so-called smoothing length of the Gassian jumps. We develop a guideline to estimate the grid resolution below which RDME and GRDME exhibit loss of bimolecular reactions. This loss of reactions has been considered unphysical by others. Here we show that this loss of bimolecular reactions is consistent with the well-established theory on diffusion-controlled reaction rates by Collins and Kimball, provided that the rate of bimolecular propensity is interpreted as the rate of the ballistic step, rather than the macroscopic reaction rate. We show that the reaction radius is set by the grid resolution. Unlike RDME, GRDME enables us to explicitly model various sizes of the molecules. Using this insight, we explore the diffusion-limited regime of reaction dynamics and discover that diffusion-controlled systems resemble small, discrete systems. Others have shown that a reaction system can have discreteness-induced state inversion, a phenomenon where the order of the concentrations differs when the system size is small. We show that the same reaction system also has diffusion-controlled state inversion, where the order of concentrations changes, when the diffusion is slow. In summary, we show that GRDME is a computationally efficient model, which enables us to include the information of the molecular sizes into the model. |