Kinetic and mesoscopic non-equilibrium description of the Ca(2+) pump: a comparison

Abstract

We analyse the operation of the Ca(2+)-ATPase ion pump using a kinetic cycle diagram. Using the methodology of Hill, we obtain the cycle fluxes, entropy production and efficiency of the pump. We compare these results with a mesoscopic non-equilibrium description of the pump and show that the kinetic and mesoscopic pictures are in accordance with each other. This gives further support to the mesoscopic theory, which is less restricted and also can include the heat flux as a variable. We also show how motors can be characterised in terms of unidirectional backward fluxes. We proceed to show how the mesoscopic approach can be used to identify fast and slow steps of the model in terms of activation energies, and how this can be used to simplify the kinetic diagram.