Finite state machine and Markovian equivalents of the lac Operon in E. coli bacterium

Abstract

The lac operon in E. coli has been extensively studied by computational biologists. The bacterium uses it to survive in the absence of glucose, utilizing lactose for growth. This paper presents a novel modeling mechanism for the lac operon, transferring the process of lactose metabolism from the cell to a finite state machine (FSM). This FSM is implemented in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and simulations are run in random conditions. A Markov chain is also proposed for the lac operon, which helps study its behavior in terms of probabilistic variables, validating the finite state machine at the same time. This work is focused towards conversion of biological processes into computing machines.

Keywords

• digital modeling
• lac operon
• bistable switch
• finite state machine
• markov model