Theoretical description of metabolism using queueing theory.

A theoretical description of the process of metabolism has been developed on the basis of the Pachinko model (see Nicholson and Wilson in Nat Rev Drug Discov 2:668-676, 2003) and the queueing theory. The suggested approach relies on the probabilistic nature of the metabolic events and the Poisson distribution of the incoming flow of substrate molecules. The main focus of the work is an output flow of metabolites or the effectiveness of metabolism process. Two simplest models have been analyzed: short- and long-living complexes of the source molecules with a metabolizing point (Hole) without queuing. It has been concluded that the approach based on queueing theory enables a very broad range of metabolic events to be described theoretically from a single probabilistic point of view.