Nonequilibrium Self-Assembly Time Forecasting by the Stochastic Landscape Method

Abstract

Many biological systems rely on the ability to self-assemble target structures from different molecular building blocks using nonequilibrium drives, stemming, for example, from chemical potential gradients. The complex interactions between the different components give rise to a rugged energy landscape with a plethora of local minima on the dynamic pathway to the target assembly. Exploring a toy physical model of multicomponents nonequilibrium self-assembly, we demonstrate that a segmented description of the system dynamics can be used to provide predictions of the first assembly times. We show that for a wide range of values of the nonequilibrium drive, a log-normal distribution emerges for the first assembly time statistics. Based on data segmentation by a Bayesian estimator of abrupt changes (BEAST), we further present a general data-based algorithmic scheme, namely, the stochastic landscape method (SLM), for assembly time predictions. We demonstrate that this scheme can be implemented for the first assembly time forecast during a nonequilibrium self-assembly process, with improved prediction power compared to a naïve guess based on the mean remaining time to the first assembly. Our results can be used to establish a general quantitative framework for nonequilibrium systems and to improve control protocols of nonequilibrium self-assembly processes.