Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processes

Abstract The famous Arrhenius equation is well suited to describing the temperature dependence of chemical reactions but has also been used for complicated biological processes. Here, we evaluate how well the simple Arrhenius equation predicts complex multi‐step biological processes, using frog and...

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Main Authors: Joseph Crapse, Nishant Pappireddi, Meera Gupta, Stanislav Y Shvartsman, Eric Wieschaus, Martin Wühr
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Nature 2021-08-01
Series:Molecular Systems Biology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.15252/msb.20209895
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author Joseph Crapse
Nishant Pappireddi
Meera Gupta
Stanislav Y Shvartsman
Eric Wieschaus
Martin Wühr
author_facet Joseph Crapse
Nishant Pappireddi
Meera Gupta
Stanislav Y Shvartsman
Eric Wieschaus
Martin Wühr
author_sort Joseph Crapse
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The famous Arrhenius equation is well suited to describing the temperature dependence of chemical reactions but has also been used for complicated biological processes. Here, we evaluate how well the simple Arrhenius equation predicts complex multi‐step biological processes, using frog and fruit fly embryogenesis as two canonical models. We find that the Arrhenius equation provides a good approximation for the temperature dependence of embryogenesis, even though individual developmental intervals scale differently with temperature. At low and high temperatures, however, we observed significant departures from idealized Arrhenius Law behavior. When we model multi‐step reactions of idealized chemical networks, we are unable to generate comparable deviations from linearity. In contrast, we find the two enzymes GAPDH and β‐galactosidase show non‐linearity in the Arrhenius plot similar to our observations of embryonic development. Thus, we find that complex embryonic development can be well approximated by the simple Arrhenius equation regardless of non‐uniform developmental scaling and propose that the observed departure from this law likely results more from non‐idealized individual steps rather than from the complexity of the system.
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spelling doaj-art-5fbb017fe2fd431ca3568fa583d6fd2e2025-08-20T04:03:07ZengSpringer NatureMolecular Systems Biology1744-42922021-08-0117811210.15252/msb.20209895Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processesJoseph Crapse0Nishant Pappireddi1Meera Gupta2Stanislav Y Shvartsman3Eric Wieschaus4Martin Wühr5Undergraduate Integrated Science Curriculum, Princeton UniversityDepartment of Molecular Biology, Princeton UniversityDepartment of Molecular Biology, Princeton UniversityUndergraduate Integrated Science Curriculum, Princeton UniversityUndergraduate Integrated Science Curriculum, Princeton UniversityUndergraduate Integrated Science Curriculum, Princeton UniversityAbstract The famous Arrhenius equation is well suited to describing the temperature dependence of chemical reactions but has also been used for complicated biological processes. Here, we evaluate how well the simple Arrhenius equation predicts complex multi‐step biological processes, using frog and fruit fly embryogenesis as two canonical models. We find that the Arrhenius equation provides a good approximation for the temperature dependence of embryogenesis, even though individual developmental intervals scale differently with temperature. At low and high temperatures, however, we observed significant departures from idealized Arrhenius Law behavior. When we model multi‐step reactions of idealized chemical networks, we are unable to generate comparable deviations from linearity. In contrast, we find the two enzymes GAPDH and β‐galactosidase show non‐linearity in the Arrhenius plot similar to our observations of embryonic development. Thus, we find that complex embryonic development can be well approximated by the simple Arrhenius equation regardless of non‐uniform developmental scaling and propose that the observed departure from this law likely results more from non‐idealized individual steps rather than from the complexity of the system.https://doi.org/10.15252/msb.20209895Arrhenius equationDrosophila melanogasterembryonic developmenttemperature dependenceXenopus laevis
spellingShingle Joseph Crapse
Nishant Pappireddi
Meera Gupta
Stanislav Y Shvartsman
Eric Wieschaus
Martin Wühr
Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processes
Molecular Systems Biology
Arrhenius equation
Drosophila melanogaster
embryonic development
temperature dependence
Xenopus laevis
title Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processes
title_full Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processes
title_fullStr Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processes
title_full_unstemmed Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processes
title_short Evaluating the Arrhenius equation for developmental processes
title_sort evaluating the arrhenius equation for developmental processes
topic Arrhenius equation
Drosophila melanogaster
embryonic development
temperature dependence
Xenopus laevis
url https://doi.org/10.15252/msb.20209895
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AT stanislavyshvartsman evaluatingthearrheniusequationfordevelopmentalprocesses
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