Chaotic vibration of microtubules and biological information processing

A new nonlinear phenomenon has been studied theoretically on one of the main cytoskeletal element of eukaryotic cells, namely chaos in microtubules vibrations. The general model of microtubules is used to draw phase portraits and Lyapunov spectra. The examination of numerical results reveals that the velocity of the chaotic wave could be the physical parameter that governs chaos. The energy released after the hydrolysation of guanosine triphosphate is converted to active turbulence leading to chaos. The high values of the Lyapunov exponents give hints that there are strong dissipations yielding in the lessening of the velocity of chaotic wave propagation in the microtubules. Moreover, the role of chaos in information processing has been established in microtubules. The energy coming from hydrolysis of guanosine triphosphate stimulates the tubulin leading it to probe its environment and collect information. The net sum of Lyapunov exponents is found to be positive in this stage of the process. Also, the collected information is compressed with a negative sum of Lyapunov exponents. Eventually, the compressibility rate has been estimated to be η=67.2%, and 1.11 bit is lost.