Collapse and Revival of Glycolytic Oscillation

Abstract

Glycolysis is the major source of metabolic energy in almost all living cells. A key feature of the glycolytic oscillations is their critical control by substrate injection rate. We show that in the limit of weak noise of the fluctuating substrate injection rate a new instability arises in the dynamics leading to collapse and revival of glycolytic oscillation reminiscent of "bursting" of action potential in nerve cells. The dynamical system in this limit also exhibits an interesting mirror image symmetry between growth and decay of fluctuations of the reaction product.