Communication and Stochastic Processes in Some Bacterial Populations: Significance for Membrane Computing

Intercellular communication between bacterial cells belonging to the same population is well documented in Microbiology, sporulation and cannibalism in B. Subtilis and genetic competence and fratricide in S. pneumoniae being deeply studied in the last years. The investigation of individual cell behavior has revealed that populations of these bacteria sometimes bifurcate into phenotypically distinct, but genetically identical, subpopulations by random switching mechanisms. The probabilistic nature of the random switching mechanisms, the occurrence of some biochemical processes related to it at plasma membrane and the need to study the processes at the level of each individual cell make intercellular communication and stochastic processes very suitable to be modeled by P systems.