Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

We consider a singular limit of diffusion equations in 3D domains of thickness converging to zero. In the 2D limit the resulting reaction-diffusion equation has a source term resulting from the Robin-type boundary conditions imposed on boundaries of the original 3D domain. The proposed approach can be applied to constructing approximate solutions of diffusion problems in thin planar, cylindrical, or spherical layers between two membranes. As an example we refer to the problem of activation of B lymphocytes, which typically have large nuclei and a thin cytoplasmic layer which can be considered as a spherical shell. For this example, assuming additionally axial symmetry we provide a rigorous convergence theorem in the language of semigroups of operators.

semigroups of operators, degenerate convergence, singular perturbation, boundary conditions, thin layers, signaling pathways, phosphorylation–dephosphorylation cycle

We prove an averaging principle which asserts convergence of diffusion processes on domains separated by semi-permeable membranes, when diffusion coefficients tend to infinity while the flux through the membranes remains constant. In the limit, points in each domain are lumped into a single state of a limit Markov chain. The limit chain's intensities are proportional to the membranes' permeability and inversely proportional to the domains' sizes. Analytically, the limit is an example of a singular perturbation in which boundary and transmission conditions play a crucial role. This averaging principle is strongly motivated by recent signaling pathways models of mathematical biology, which are discussed toward the end of the paper.

Convergence of sectorial forms and of semigroups of operators, diffusion processes, boundary and transmission conditions, Freidlin–Wentzell averaging principle, singular perturbations, signaling pathways, kinase activity, intracellular calcium dynamics, neurotransmitters

The paper is devoted to a stochastic process introduced in the recent paper by Lipniacki et al. [T. Lipniacki, P. Paszek, A. Marciniak-Czochra, A.R. Brasier, M. Kimmel, Transcriptional stochasticity in gene expression, J. Theor. Biol. 238 (2006) 348–367] in modelling gene expression in eukaryotes. Starting from the full generator of the process we show that its distributions satisfy a (Fokker–Planck-type) system of partial differential equations. Then, we construct a c0 Markov semigroup in L1 space corresponding to this system. The main result of the paper is asymptotic stability of the involved semigroup in the set of densities.

Piece-wise deterministic process, Stochastic gene expression, Semigroups of operators, Feller semigroups, Dual semigroups, Markov semigroups, Asymptotic stability