Fluctuating diffusivity of RNA-protein particles: Analogy with thermodynamics

Abstract

A formal analogy of fluctuating diffusivity to thermodynamics is discussed for messenger RNA molecules fluorescently fused to a protein in living cells. Regarding the average value of the fluctuating diffusivity of such RNA-protein particles as the analog of the internal energy, the analogs of the quantity of heat and work are identified. The Clausius-like inequality is shown to hold for the entropy associated with diffusivity fluctuations, which plays a role analogous to the thermodynamic entropy, and the analog of the quantity of heat. The change of the statistical fluctuation distribution is also examined from a geometric perspective. The present discussions may contribute to a deeper understanding of the fluctuating diffusivity in view of the laws of thermodynamics.

19 pages, no figures. The discussion developed further and some references added. Published version

References in corpus (4)

• Anomalous transport in the crowded world of biological cells
• "Diffusing diffusivity": A model for anomalous and "anomalous yet Brownian" diffusion
• Superstatistical modelling of protein diffusion dynamics in bacteria
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Conditional entropic approach to nonequilibrium complex systems with weak fluctuation correlation
• Weak correlation between fluctuations in protein diffusion inside bacteria
• Analog of the Carnot engine for fluctuating diffusivity in living cells
• On the thermodynamic analogy of intracellular diffusivity fluctuations