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Compartmental models
In the simplest structured models, the biomass is
compartmentalized into a small number of components.
Sometimes these components have an approximate
biochemical definition, as in a synthetic component (RNA and
precursors) and a structured component (DNA and
component). Alternatively, the compartments may be defined
as an assimilatory component and a synthetic component.
Another interpretation which has been used to guide
formulation of simple compartmental models is that of a
bottleneck in metabolism.
Structured models containing a small number of
variables may also be justified on the basis of some concepts
from systems dynamics. Each class of reaction and transport
events which occurs in a cell population-molecular collisions,
chemical reactions, diffusions, turnover of RNA, protein
synthesis, increase in cell number, completion of batch
process, spontaneous mutation-has characteristic relaxation
time, or time to reach steady state after a perturbation. These
relaxation times ranges from fractions of second to hours.
What is important in modeling, from a systems dynamics
viewpoint, is the relaxation time between the time scale of
changes in cells environment and the spectrum of relaxation
times of cellular processes. Those cellular processes that
respond very fast to environmental changes may be assumed
to be in quasi-steady state. For the other extreme, where the
relaxation time for some cellular process is very large
compared to ,that class of cellular processes may be
assumed to be ``frozen at the initial state. For example,
The three-component cell has constituents with more welldefined biochemical identity: K denotes RNA, G protein and R
the remaining biomass. Turnover of the K and G
compartments adds features of maintenance to the model.
Compared with some of the more elaborate structured
models are examined below, these small compartmental
models are relatively uncomplicated mathematically and
contain relatively few kinetic parameters. These models have
been used with some success in describing different
unbalanced growth situations. On the other hand, the absence
in some cases of a clear biochemical definition of the
compartment components make model validation and
parameter estimation more difficult. With such models, we
cannot make use of known features of the cells metabolic
pathways, molecular controls and cell cycle operation. To use
this knowledge in kinetic modeling, cell representations with
more structure that is, more components and intracellular
reactions and interactions are required.