Difusión de un trazador en un espacio bidimensional: modelo de difusión de agua en una membrana biológica

PEREZ-LEALE EDUARDO; JACOVKIS PABLO MIGUEL; CHARA OSVALDO

ANALES AFA

CRECIC

Lugar: Tandil, Argentina; Año: 2005 vol. 17 p. 328 - 332

0327-358X

In this work simulations of tracer transport through a two-dimensional space were carried on, simulating water diffusion through a biological membrane. Two models were studied: a pure fosfolipidic membrane and a membrane with transmembrane proteins. Every membrane was simulated by means of an occupation matrix in which every element represents the probability p that the corresponding place on the membrane be free allowing a tracer to cross it. In the first model, each tracer can move to occupy any of the first four neighbor places inside the membrane with the same probability. In the second model, the tracer only can move according to this rule if it does not impact with a protein. The membrane, tracer dimensions and their displacement times were established to emulate a biological membrane. In each simulation a tracer started its journey at the bottom of the membrane and finished it at the top of the membrane allowing counting the time spent on the journey. The simulations were implemented on a program written in C++ allowing the computation of the diffusion coefficient of the membrane. This work shows that it would be possible to interpret the water transport through a biological membrane in terms of a simple two-dimensional diffusive model.