[Fluctuations of cell cycle duration]

The problems whether the cell cycle is a deterministic or probabilistic process is widely discussed in current literature [1, 3, 7]. Present work deals with fluctuations of the cell cycle in terms of the mathematical model of membrane regulation of cell division. The presence of white noise in the parameters describing the influxes of lipids and antioxidants into the membrane is studied by the methods of Markovian processes, as well as by direct computer simulation. The equation for the distribution function of cell generation times is obtained and the increase of dispersion and the mean cell cycle time during the change of the system parameters which can be related to the density of cell culture is calculated. The theoretical distributions qualitatively agree with experimental data.