Definition
The Gillespie Algorithm, also known as the Stochastic Simulation Algorithm (SSA), is a computer-oriented procedure for simulating the changes in the molecular populations of chemical species in a chemically reacting system. The algorithm requires the reactant molecules, typically solute molecules in a sea of many much smaller solvent molecules, to be dilute and well-mixed throughout the containing volume. In contrast to the traditional differential equations of chemical kinetics, which imposes not only those requirements but also the requirement that the molecular populations be very large, the SSA simulates the occurrence of individual reaction events in a way that properly reflects their inherent randomness. That randomness is often important for the relatively low molecular populations that commonly occur in cellular systems.
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, ordinary differential equations (ODEs) have been the...
References
Anderson D (2007) A modified next reaction method for simulating chemical systems with time dependent propensities and delays. J Chem Phys 127:214107 (10 pages)
Cao Y, Li H, Petzold L (2004) Efficient formulation of the stochastic simulation algorithm for chemically reacting systems. J Chem Phys 121:4059–4067
Cao Y, Gillespie D, Petzold L (2006) Efficient step size selection for the tau-leaping simulation method. J Chem Phys 124:044109 (11 pages)
Gibson M, Bruck J (2000) Efficient exact stochastic simulation of chemical systems with many species and many channels. J Phys Chem A 104:1876–1889
Gillespie D (1976) A general method for numerically simulating the stochastic time evolution of coupled chemical reactions. J Comput Phys 4:403–434
Gillespie D (1977) Exact stochastic simulation of coupled chemical reactions. J Phys Chem 81:2340–2361
Gillespie D (2001) Approximate accelerated stochastic simulation of chemically reacting systems. J Chem Phys 115:1716–1733
Gillespie D (2008) Simulation methods in systems biology. In: Bernardo M, Degano P, Zavattaro G (eds) Formal methods for computational systems biology. Springer, New York, pp 125–167
Gillespie D (2009a) Deterministic limit of stochastic chemical kinetics. J Phys Chem B 113:1640–1644
Gillespie D (2009b) A diffusional bimolecular propensity function. J Chem Phys 131:164109 (13 pgs)
Gillespie D, Seitaridou E (2012) Simple Brownian diffusion: an introduction to the standard theoretical models. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Gillespie D, Hellander A, Petzold L (2013) Perspective: stochastic algorithms for chemical kinetics. J Chem Phys 138:170901 (14 pgs)
Mauch S, Stalzer M (2011) Efficient formulations for exact stochastic simulation of chemical systems. IEEE/ACM Trans Comput Biol Bioinform 8:27–35
McCollum J, Peterson G, Cox C, Simpson M, Samatova N (2006) The sorting direct method for stochastic simulation of biochemical systems with varying reaction execution behavior. Comput Biol Chem 30:39–49
Slepoy A, Thompson A, Plimpton S (2008) A constant-time kinetic Monte Carlo algorithm for simulation of large biochemical reaction networks. J Chem Phys 128:205101 (8 pgs)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Gillespie, D.T. (2015). Gillespie Algorithm for Biochemical Reaction Simulation. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_189-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_189-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7320-6
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Gillespie Algorithm for Biochemical Reaction Simulation- Published:
- 29 September 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_189-2
-
Original
Gillespie Algorithm for Biochemical Reaction Simulation- Published:
- 01 March 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_189-1