Soft Matter and Complex Systems Seminar

The subject of the seminar will be the interplay between two modes of transition for a prototype bistable system of kinase--phosphatase interactions on the plasma membrane. Using microscopic kinetic Monte Carlo simulations on the lattice, it can be observed that for finite diffusion the behaviour of the spatially extended system differs qualitatively from the behaviour of the same system in the well-mixed regime. Even when a small isolated subcompartment remains mostly inactive, the chemical wave may propagate, leading to the activation of a larger compartment. The activating wave can be induced after a small subdomain is activated as a result of a stochastic fluctuation. For the considered system, such a spontaneous onset of activity is radically more probable in subdomains characterized by slower diffusion.