Supplementary to the core QS functionality, DNA undergoes duplication and AHL undergoes diffusion between 2 spaces: the “internal” (intracellular) and the “external”. To understand the latter process, consider all the bacterial cytoplasms conjoined in a single volume separated by a membrane from the outside.

This model has originally been built to simulate an entire bacterial population living in constant exponential growth conditions in a constant volume with continuous dilution.. We consider these conditions not to influence the cell’s internal mechanisms significantly though and expand their approach to other living conditions, only adjusting the DNA duplication and AHL diffusion processes.

We built this first model to better understand the constraints and basic properties of the physical system, before going into greater depth in the following sections. A caveat to our extrapolation is that cellular metabolism could be significantly altered when cells enter a stationary growth phase, impacting the core QS functionality. We keep this in mind, but have found no way to account for it.

In the following section, we present exploratory simulations of the system’s behaviour.