Temperature dependency and temperature compensation in a model of yeast glycolytic oscillations.

Temperature sensitivities and conditions for temperature compensation have been investigated in a model for yeast glycolytic oscillations. The model can quantitatively simulate the experimental observation that the period length of glycolytic oscillations decreases with increasing temperature. Temperature compensation is studied by using control coefficients describing the effect of rate constants on oscillatory frequencies. Temperature compensation of the oscillatory period is observed when the positive contributions to the sum of products between control coefficients and activation energies balance the corresponding sum of the negative contributions. The calculations suggest that by changing the activation energies for one or several of the processes, i.e. by mutations, it could be possible to obtain temperature compensation in the yeast glycolytic oscillator.