Background

Living cells are amazingly complex mixtures of a variety of complex molecules (RNA, DNA, proteins, lipids, ...) that are constantly undergoing reactions with one another. The kinetics of chemical reactions is usually described by differential equations, and rarely are statistical fluctuations considered important. In a cell, the numbers of molecules of a given type can be rather small: indeed, there is (often) only one copy of the relevant part of DNA for a given reaction. This module investigates the effects of number fluctuations on a simple dimerization reaction in a cell, comparing both the continuum and Gillespie algorithms for the evolution as the populations are changed.

Procedure

• Download and read Stochastic Cells Exercise
• Download the file StochasticCellsHints.py and rename it "StochasticCells.py".
• Follow the directions in Stochastic Cells Exercise, and implement the missing functionality in the .py file based on the material in the Exercise and the hints in the source code.