Oscillating chemical reactions glycolytic oscillations

Oscillatory reactions are a typical class of phenomena, which display unusual features. After the discovery of Belousov-Zhabotinskii (B-Z) reaction, there has been a tremendous flurry of activity [1] and a large number of such reactions have been discovered during recent years. Biochemical reactions [2-10] such as glycolytic oscillations and peroxidase catalysed oxidation of nicotinamide adenosine deoxyhydrogenase (NADH) have also generated considerable interest. The interest in such reactions is stiU sustained in view of their importance in understanding cardiac and neuronal oscillations. In the case of many oscillatory chemical reactions [1], detailed reaction mechanisms have been postulated and verified with the help of numerical computation. This has also been particularly so for B-Z reaction where Field-Koros-Noyes (FKN) mechanism [11] has been invoked. 

At the same time as the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction provided a chemical prototype for oscillatory behavior, the first experimental studies on the reaction catalyzed by peroxidase [24] and on the glycolytic system in yeast (to be discussed in Section 111) demonstrated the occurrence of biochemical oscillations in vitro. These advances opened the way to the study of the molecular bases of oscillations in biological systems. 

Higgins formulated a generalized chemical mechanism for oscillating reactions. This mechanism was then used to explain glycolytic oscillations. Based on the known chemistry of phosphofructokinase (PFK) and the associated glycolytic intermediates, Higgins proposed ... 

Whereas oscillatory phenomena have been, until recently, considered chemical curiosities, they had been of great interest to biochemists for years. Metabolic pathways conform to all requirements for the observation of oscillations the systems are open—reactants constantly enter across cell walls and products are removed they are far from equilibrium there are feedback loops to maintain and reassert control even when the cell is drastically perturbed. Most biochemical oscillators are so complex that a detailed mechanistic analysis, such as that given for the Belousov reaction, is not available. The mechanism of glycolytic oscillation in yeast is the most well established. 

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