On the power of bio-turing machines

In this paper, we continue the study of Bio-Turing machines introduced in [1]. It was proved in [1] that using two differentiated cells, and using antiport rules of weight 2, one can recognize the family 1RE. We show here that with just one differentiated cell, 1RE can be characterized, by using antiport rules of weight 2, or by using symport rules of weight 3. We also prove that RE can be characterized using arbitrary alphabets, using 2 differentiated cells, and antiport rules of weight 2. Finally, we examine the computational power when there are no differentiated cells and show that non-regular languages can be accepted. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.