Thomas Mair

Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Institut für Experimentelle
Physik, Abteilung Biophysik, Universitätsplatz 2, 39106 Magdeburg,
Germany

The glycolytic pathway plays a central role for the energy metabolism
as well as anabolic and catabolic pathways in eukaryotic cells. Due to
positive and negative feed back regulation of allosterically regulated
enzymes, this pathway is able to exhibit oscillatory reaction
kinetics. Under these conditions, the generation of travelling NADH
and proton waves can be observed in a glycolysing yeast extract. The
propagation dynamics of these waves resemble those of travelling
reaction-diffusion waves in other oscillatory systems from such
diverse origins as chemistry, biology or physics, hence characterising
the yeast extract as an excitable system.

We will present results about the basic dynamics of glycolytic
excitation waves as obtained in a yeast extract. Moreover, first
results about the construction of an open spatial reactor for the
maintenance of glycolytic waves will be shown. Such open spatial
reactors play an important role for the maintenance of a given state
of the system as well as controlled variation of system parameters.