Open AccessDifferential Gene Expression Regulated by Oscillatory Transcription Factors
Author(s) -
Luca Cerone,
Zoltán Neufeld
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0030283
Subject(s) - transcription (linguistics) , gene , gene expression , transcription factor , regulation of gene expression , biology , gene regulatory network , microbiology and biotechnology , ordinary differential equation , control theory (sociology) , computational biology , genetics , biological system , physics , computer science , differential equation , quantum mechanics , philosophy , linguistics , control (management) , artificial intelligence
Cells respond to changes in the internal and external environment by a complex regulatory system whose end-point is the activation of transcription factors controlling the expression of a pool of ad-hoc genes. Recent experiments have shown that certain stimuli may trigger oscillations in the concentration of transcription factors such as NF- B and p53 influencing the final outcome of the genetic response. In this study we investigate the role of oscillations in the case of three different well known gene regulatory mechanisms using mathematical models based on ordinary differential equations and numerical simulations. We considered the cases of direct regulation, two-step regulation and feed-forward loops, and characterized their response to oscillatory input signals both analytically and numerically. We show that in the case of indirect two-step regulation the expression of genes can be turned on or off in a frequency dependent manner, and that feed-forward loops are also able to selectively respond to the temporal profile of oscillating transcription factors.