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Updated: Dec 27, 2025

Analyzing Supercomplexes of the Mitochondrial Electron Transport Chain with Native Electrophoresis, In-gel Assays, and Electroelution
Published on: June 1, 2017
Physically-plausible modelling of biomolecular systems: A simplified, energy-based model of the mitochondrial
Peter J Gawthrop1, Peter Cudmore2, Edmund J Crampin3
1Systems Biology Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Melbourne School of Engineering, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; Systems Biology Laboratory, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
Abstract:
Advances in systems biology and whole-cell modelling demand increasingly comprehensive mathematical models of cellular biochemistry. Such models require the development of simplified representations of specific processes which capture essential biophysical features but without unnecessarily complexity. Recently there has been renewed interest in thermodynamically-based modelling of cellular processes. Here we present an approach to developing of simplified yet thermodynamically consistent (hence physically plausible) models which can readily be incorporated into large scale biochemical descriptions but which do not require full mechanistic detail of the underlying processes. We illustrate the approach through development of a simplified, physically plausible model of the mitochondrial electron transport chain and show that the simplified model behaves like the full system.
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