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7. Genetics: interference in glucose/lactose metabolism

In paper (Asano et al., 2012a), there was developed a quantum-like model describing the gene regulation of glucose/lactose metabolism in Escherichia coli bacterium.11 There are several types of E. coli characterized by the metabolic system. It was demonstrated that the concrete type of E. coli can be described by the well determined linear operators; we find the invariant operator quantities characterizing each type. Such invariant operator quantities can be calculated from the obtained statistical data. So, the quantum-like representation was reconstructed from experimental data.

Let us consider an event system  means the event that E. coli activates its lactose operon, that is, the event that -galactosidase is produced through the transcription of mRNA from a gene in lactose operon; means the event that E. coli does not activates its lactose operon.

This system of events corresponds to activation observable  that is mathematically represented by a quantum instrument . Consider now another system of events  where  means the event that an E. coli bacterium detects a lactose molecular in cell’s surrounding environment,  means detection of a glucose molecular. This system of events corresponds to detection observable  that is represented by a quantum instrument .

In this model, bacterium’s interaction–reaction with glucose/lactose environment is described as sequential action of two quantum instruments, first detection and then activation. As was shown in Asano et al. (2012a), for each concrete type of E. coli bacterium, these quantum instruments can be reconstructed from the experimental data; in Asano et al. (2012a), reconstruction was performed for W3110-type of E. coli bacterium. The classical FTP with observables   and  is violated, the interference term, see (2), was calculated (Asano et al., 2012a).