finding the steady state solutions of photosynthesis.pdfVIP

1 A Simple Model of the Calvin Cycle Has Only One Physiologically Feasible Steady State 2 under the Same External Conditions 3 4 Xin-Guang Zhu, Eric de Sturler, Rafael Alba, Stephen P. Long 5 6 7 Keywords: Nonlinear system; photosynthesis; steady state; evolution 8 9 Abstract : Most current photosynthesis research implicitly assumes that the 10 photosynthetic process occurs only at one steady state. However, since the rate of each 11 reaction in photosynthesis depends nonlinearly on its substrates and products, in theory, 12 photosynthesis can have multiple steady states under given external conditions (i.e., in a 13 given environment). The number of steady states of photosynthesis under the same 14 external conditions has not been studied previously. Using the root finding program 15 POLSYS_PLP (Wise et al 2000, ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software), we 16 study the number of potential steady states of a simplified model of the Calvin cycle. Our 17 results show that the simplified model of the Calvin cycle can reside in multiple steady 18 states, but that only one of these is physiologically feasible. We discuss the results from 19 an evolutionary perspective. 20 1 1 Introduction 2 3 Photosynthesis is inherently a complex system. It includes biophysical and biochemical 4 reactions associated with light energy absorption, conversion of light energy into 5 chemical energy in the form of ATP and NADPH, and complex biochemical reactions 6 involved in the photosynthetic carbon metabolism. The rate of each reaction in 7 photosynthesis depends nonlinearly on the concentrations of its substrates and products. 8 Photosynthesis shows the typical characteristics o