Improved bounds on entropy production in living systems
Name
e2024300118.full.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.27 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
668f89a9d93322254567ba501b745080
Author(s)
Skinner, Dominic J
Dunkel, Jörn
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Living systems maintain or increase local order by working against the second law of thermodynamics. Thermodynamic consistency is restored as they consume free energy, thereby increasing the net entropy of their environment. Recently introduced estimators for the entropy production rate have provided major insights into the efficiency of important cellular processes. In experiments, however, many degrees of freedom typically remain hidden to the observer, and, in these cases, existing methods are not optimal. Here, by reformulating the problem within an optimization framework, we are able to infer improved bounds on the rate of entropy production from partial measurements of biological systems. Our approach yields provably optimal estimates given certain measurable transition statistics. In contrast to prevailing methods, the improved estimator reveals nonzero entropy production rates even when nonequilibrium processes appear time symmetric and therefore may pretend to obey detailed balance. We demonstrate the broad applicability of this framework by providing improved bounds on the energy consumption rates in a diverse range of biological systems including bacterial flagella motors, growing microtubules, and calcium oscillations within human embryonic kidney cells.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024300118
