Intracellular Turing Patterns

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Silvina Ponce Dawson
Departamento de Fisica, FCEN-UBA, Ciudad Universitaria, Pabellon I
Intracellular Turing Patterns

Concentration gradients inside cells are involved in key processes such as cell division and morphogenesis. In this talk I show that a model of the enzymatic step catalized by phosphofructokinase (PFK), which is responsible for the homogeneous oscillations observed in the glycolytic pathway, displays Turing patterns with an intrinsic length-scale that is smaller than a typical cell size. All the parameter values are fully consistent with classic experiments on glycolytic oscillations and equal diffusion coefficients are assumed for ATP and ADP. We identify the enzyme concentration and the glycolytic flux as possible targets for the regulation of the pattern. I finally discuss how the formation of Turing patterns in this biochemical pathway could be related to organizing centers in eukaryotic cells, playing a role during cell division.