Theoretical methods for study of kinetics of models of the mitochondrial respiratory chain.

In earlier work, Hill and Chance obtained exact steady-state kinetic properties for partial models of the mitochondrial respiratory chain with two isopotential pools and one four-state "site enzyme" between the two pools. That work is extended here to full models of the respiratory chain with four isopotential pools and three four-state site enzymes between pairs of pools. Because of the complexity of the model, exact calculations are no longer possible. Instead, we show, by means of some examples, the feasibility of using Monte Carlo calculations on all cases and numerical solution of thousands of kinetic differential equations in many cases.