Faculty Articles

An Investigation of the Plausibility of Stochastic Resonance in Tubulin Dimers

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Biosystems

ISSN

0303-2647

Publication Date

2-2012

Abstract

This paper considers the possibility of stochastic resonance (SR) in tubulin dimers. A formula for the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of tubulin as a function of temperature is derived. The effective potential experienced by a delocalized electron in such a dimer is postulated to be a symmetric bimodal well. Inter-well and intra-well motions are described by Kramers rate theory and the Langevin formalism respectively. The frequency-dependent expression for the SNR shows that the response of the electron-tubulin dimer system is enhanced by ambient dipolar oscillations in specific frequency regimes. This is a characteristic of SR. Biophysical implications of this property such as the relevance to 8.085 MHz microtubule resonance and the clocking mechanism are detailed.

DOI

10.1016/j.biosystems.2011.09.005

Volume

107

Issue

2

First Page

81

Last Page

87

Peer Reviewed

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