Kinetics and thermodynamics of living copolymerization processes.
Theoretical advances are reported on the kinetics and thermodynamics of free and template-directed living copolymerizations. Until recently, the kinetic theory of these processes had only been established in the fully irreversible regime, in which the attachment rates are only considered. However, the entropy production is infinite in this regime and the approach to thermodynamic equilibrium cannot be investigated. For this purpose, the detachment rates should also be included. Inspite of this complication, the kinetics can be exactly solved in the regimes of steady growth and depolymerization. In this way, analytical expressions are obtained for the mean growth velocity, the statistical properties of the copolymer sequences, as well as the thermodynamic entropy production. The results apply to DNA replication, transcription and translation, allowing us to understand important aspects of molecular evolution.This article is part of the themed issue 'Multiscale modelling at the physics-chemistry-biology interface'.
['Gaspard|Pierre|P|http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3804-2110']
D001665:Binding Sites D003198:Computer Simulation D004247:DNA D004261:DNA Replication D004259:DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase D007700:Kinetics D046911:Macromolecular Substances D008956:Models, Chemical D015233:Models, Statistical D011485:Protein Binding D013816:Thermodynamics
copolymers DNA replication molecular evolution kinetic theory of copolymerization