1 research outputs found
Oscillation patterns in negative feedback loops
Organisms are equipped with regulatory systems that display a variety of
dynamical behaviours ranging from simple stable steady states, to switching and
multistability, to oscillations. Earlier work has shown that oscillations in
protein concentrations or gene expression levels are related to the presence of
at least one negative feedback loop in the regulatory network. Here we study
the dynamics of a very general class of negative feedback loops. Our main
result is that in these systems the sequence of maxima and minima of the
concentrations is uniquely determined by the topology of the loop and the
activating/repressing nature of the interaction between pairs of variables.
This allows us to devise an algorithm to reconstruct the topology of
oscillating negative feedback loops from their time series; this method applies
even when some variables are missing from the data set, or if the time series
shows transients, like damped oscillations. We illustrate the relevance and the
limits of validity of our method with three examples: p53-Mdm2 oscillations,
circadian gene expression in cyanobacteria, and cyclic binding of cofactors at
the estrogen-sensitive pS2 promoter.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure