Renewal theory for Brownian motion across a stochastically gated interface

Abstract

Stochastically gated interfaces play an important role in a variety of cellular diffusion processes. Examples include intracellular transport via stochastically gated ion channels and pores in the plasma membrane of a cell, intercellular transport between cells coupled by stochastically gated gap junctions, and oxygen transport in insect respiration. Most studies of stochastically-gated interfaces are based on macroscopic models that track the particle concentration averaged with respect to different realisations of the gate dynamics. In this paper we use renewal theory to develop a probabilistic model of single-particle Brownian motion (BM) through a stochastically gated interface. We proceed by constructing a renewal equation for 1D BM with an interface at the origin, which effectively sews together a sequence of BMs on the half-line with a totally absorbing boundary at $x=0$. Each time the particle is absorbed, the stochastic process is immediately restarted according to the following rule: if the gate is closed then BM restarts on the same side of the interface, whereas if the gate is open then BM restarts on either side of the interface with equal probability. In order to ensure that diffusion restarts in a state that avoids immediate re-absorption. we assume that whenever the particle reaches the interface it is instantaneously shifted a distance $ε$ from the origin. We explicitly solve the renewal equation for $ε>0$ and show how the solution of a corresponding forward Kolmogorov equation is recovered in the limit $ε\rightarrow 0$. However, the renewal equation provides a more general mathematical framework by explicitly separating the first passage time problem of detecting the gated interface (absorption) and the subsequent rule for restarting BM. We conclude by extending the theory to higher-dimensional interfaces.