Nutrient uptake rate as a function of cell size and surface transporter density: A Michaelis-like approximation to the model of Pasciak and Gavis

Pasciak and Gavis were first to propose a model of nutrient uptake that includes both physical transport by diffusion and active biological transport across the cell membrane. While the Pasciak-Gavis model is not complicated mathematically (it can be expressed in closed form as a quadratic equation), its parameters are not so easily interpretable biologically as are the parameters of the Michaelis-Menten uptake model; this lack of transparency is probably the main reason the Pasciak-Gavis model has not been adopted by ecologically oriented modelers. Here I derive a Michaelis-like approximation to the Pasciak-Gavis model, and show how the parameters of the latter map to those of the Michaelis-like model. The derived approximation differs from a pure Michaelis-Menten model in a subtle but potentially critical way: in a pure Michaelis-Menten model, the half-saturation constant for nutrient uptake is independent of the density of transporter (or "porter") proteins on the cell surface, while in the Pasciak-Gavis model and its Michaelis-like approximation, the half-saturation constant does depend on the density of porter proteins. The Pasciak-Gavis model predicts a unique relationship between cell size, nutrient concentration in the medium, the half-saturation constant of porter-limited nutrient uptake, and the resulting rate of uptake; the Michaelis-like approximation preserves the most important feature of that relationship, the size at which porter limitation gives way to diffusion limitation. Finally I discuss the implications for community structure that are implied by the Pasciak-Gavis model and its Michaelis-like approximation. (c) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.