Kinetic and related models with applications in the natural sciences

Thermodynamics of open chemical reaction networks: Energy and information transduction in biology

Massimiliano Esposito

University of Luxembourg

Open chemical reaction networks (CRNs) play a central role in biology, in particular for metabolism. I will show how open CRNs can be seen as thermodynamic machines transducing energy and information far from-equilibrium. More specifically, the following questions will be addressed: What is minimal chemical work needed to bring a CNR into a given nonequilibrium state? [1] What is a thermodynamically meaningful notion of information in a CRN? [1] How does the topology of a CRN affects its dissipation? [2,3] How can one coarse grained the description of a CNR without altering its thermodynamics? [4]. How can one account for fluctuations and spatial inhomogeneities? [5] [1] R. Rao and M. Esposito, “Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Chemical Reaction Networks: Wisdom from Stochastic Thermodynamics”, Phys. Rev. X 6, 041064 (2016) [2] M. Polettini and M. Esposito, “Irreversible thermodynamics of open chemical networks I: Emergent cycles and broken conservation laws”, J. Chem. Phys. 141, 024117 (2014). [3] R. Rao, D. Lacoste and M. Esposito, "Glucans monomer-exchange dynamics as an open chemical network", J. Chem. Phys. 143, 244903 (2015). [4] A. Wachtel, R. Rao and M. Esposito, "Thermodynamically Consistent Coarse Graining of Biocatalysts beyond Michaelis-Menten", arXiv:1709.06045. [5] M. Polettini, A. Wachtel and M. Esposito, "Dissipation in noisy chemical networks: The role of deficiency", J. Chem. Phys. 143, 184103 (2015).