title: Reaction kinetics in intracellular environments with macromolecular crowding: simulations and rate laws.
abstract: We review recent evidence illustrating the fundamental difference between cytoplasmic and test tube biochemical kinetics and thermodynamics, and showing the breakdown of the law of mass action and power-law approximation in in vivo conditions. Simulations of biochemical reactions in non-homogeneous media show that as a result of anomalous diffusion and mixing of the biochemical species, reactions follow a fractal-like kinetics. Consequently, the conventional equations for biochemical pathways fail to describe the reactions in in vivo conditions. We present a modification to fractal-like kinetics following the Zipf-Mandelbrot distribution which will enable the modelling and analysis of biochemical reactions occurring in crowded intracellular environments.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Institute, Oxford, UK. schnell@maths.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schnell
authors.forename: T E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Turner
mesh_terms: D001704:Biopolymers / Q000378:metabolism*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D042541:Intracellular Space / Q000378:metabolism*; D007700:Kinetics; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009097:Multienzyme Complexes / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001704:Biopolymers; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D009097:Multienzyme Complexes