The mechanism of splitting mitochondria in terms of membrane automata

Bio-inspired models of computation are systems influenced by the functioning of biological systems. The mitochondrial membrane structure contains two distinct compartments separated by membranes, which act as separators and as channels of communication between compartments. Mitochondria have been observed to go through frequent fusion and fission. The balance between these opposing processes regulates mitochondrial morphology and is crucial for cell development, disease and apoptosis. The use of automata theory in the framework of Bioinformatics is widely studied. In this work we attempt to describe in a novel way a mitochondrial fission process based on membrane automata. We make use of notions from brane calculus and we present an abstracted model of the mechanisms that contribute to this biological phenomenon.