Automaton Model for Quorum Sensing Bacteria

Això és postejar per inèrcia... Simplement perquè tingueu alguna raó per comentar i muntar-vos converses a la secció de comentaris.

La raó d'avui: doncs que fins l'hora d'escriure aquestes quatre línies (ara mateix llegeixo les 3:11 AM) he estat currant. Tenia ganes de redactar del projecte, que feia dies que no podia, i què ha passat?

Lleva't tard + acaba una feina + dina + Barça + xivarri excessiu al lab + 2h d'històries i batalletes del profe = 0 pàgines redactades.

Doncs això, que després de sopar m'he animat, m'he posat un bon CD de heavy... i endavant. Us deixo un extracte (que segur que llegireu tots, SEGUR!)

- Gene expression approach: the biological explanation of the Quorum Sensing phenomena suggests that after reaching the critical population, the concentration of autoinducers forces a enzyme reaction that ends up modifying the gene expression, thus changing the behavior of the bacteria. When the concentration goes back to low levels, the regulation of the genes performed before is reversed.

Hence, the most direct way to model this would be modelling the gene expression. After that, the bacterium senses periodcally the environment and emits the consequent amount of autoinducers, in the same vein as it was modeled in the pre-Quorum section. When the concentration goes below the xed threshold, a state of reversing of the regulation of the gene expression should be entered, and then back to the OFF section to begin the process again.

As can be seen in the gure 3.3, the modi cation of the gene expression and its reversal process are shown as a black box. That is exactly the shortcoming of this approach: diff erent species have diff erent genetic material, and distinct behaviors require distinct changes in the gene expression. All in all, each case would require a concrete and complex model of the activation or repression of every gene involved. Regarding the other two states, their function is to control that the autoinducers emission is still above a certain level, and act accordingly.