TY - JOUR A1 - Montefusco, Alberto A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie T1 - A route to the hydrodynamic limit of a reaction-diffusion master equation using gradient structures JF - SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics N2 - The reaction-diffusion master equation (RDME) is a lattice-based stochastic model for spatially resolved cellular processes. It is often interpreted as an approximation to spatially continuous reaction-diffusion models, which, in the limit of an infinitely large population, may be described by means of reaction-diffusion partial differential equations. Analyzing and understanding the relation between different mathematical models for reaction-diffusion dynamics is a research topic of steady interest. In this work, we explore a route to the hydrodynamic limit of the RDME which uses gradient structures. Specifically, we elaborate on a method introduced in [J. Maas and A. Mielke, J. Stat. Phys., 181 (2020), pp. 2257–2303] in the context of well-mixed reaction networks by showing that, once it is complemented with an appropriate limit procedure, it can be applied to spatially extended systems with diffusion. Under the assumption of detailed balance, we write down a gradient structure for the RDME and use the method in order to produce a gradient structure for its hydrodynamic limit, namely, for the corresponding RDPDE. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1137/22M1488831 VL - 83 IS - 2 SP - 837 EP - 861 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wehlitz, Nathalie A1 - Sadeghi, Mohsen A1 - Montefusco, Alberto A1 - Schütte, Christof A1 - Pavliotis, Grigorios A. A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie T1 - Approximating particle-based clustering dynamics by stochastic PDEs JF - SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems N2 - This work proposes stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) as a practical tool to replicate clustering effects of more detailed particle-based dynamics. Inspired by membrane mediated receptor dynamics on cell surfaces, we formulate a stochastic particle-based model for diffusion and pairwise interaction of particles, leading to intriguing clustering phenomena. Employing numerical simulation and cluster detection methods, we explore the approximation of the particle-based clustering dynamics through mean-field approaches. We find that SPDEs successfully reproduce spatiotemporal clustering dynamics, not only in the initial cluster formation period, but also on longer time scales where the successive merging of clusters cannot be tracked by deterministic mean-field models. The computational efficiency of the SPDE approach allows us to generate extensive statistical data for parameter estimation in a simpler model that uses a Markov jump process to capture the temporal evolution of the cluster number. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1137/24M1676661 VL - 24 IS - 2 SP - 1231 EP - 1250 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Montefusco, Alberto A1 - Helfmann, Luzie A1 - Okunola, Toluwani A1 - Winkelmann, Stefanie A1 - Schütte, Christof T1 - Partial mean-field model for neurotransmission dynamics JF - Mathematical Biosciences N2 - This article addresses reaction networks in which spatial and stochastic effects are of crucial importance. For such systems, particle-based models allow us to describe all microscopic details with high accuracy. However, they suffer from computational inefficiency if particle numbers and density get too large. Alternative coarse-grained-resolution models reduce computational effort tremendously, e.g., by replacing the particle distribution by a continuous concentration field governed by reaction-diffusion PDEs. We demonstrate how models on the different resolution levels can be combined into hybrid models that seamlessly combine the best of both worlds, describing molecular species with large copy numbers by macroscopic equations with spatial resolution while keeping the stochastic-spatial particle-based resolution level for the species with low copy numbers. To this end, we introduce a simple particle-based model for the binding dynamics of ions and vesicles at the heart of the neurotransmission process. Within this framework, we derive a novel hybrid model and present results from numerical experiments which demonstrate that the hybrid model allows for an accurate approximation of the full particle-based model in realistic scenarios. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mbs.2024.109143 VL - 369 ER -