A statistical study on oscillatory protein expression

Abstract

Motivated by the experiments on the dynamics of a common network motif, p53 and Mdm2 feedback loop, by Lahav et al. [Nat. Genet 36, 147(2004)] in individual cells and Lev Bar-or et al. [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97, 11250(2000)] at the population of cells, we propose a statistical signal-response model with aiming to describe the different oscillatory behaviors for the activities of p53 and Mdm2 proteins both in individual and in population of cells in a unified way. At the cellular level, the activities of p53 and Mdm2 proteins are described by a group of nonlinear dynamical equations where the damage-derived signal is assumed to have the form with abrupt transition ("on" ↔ "off") as soon as signal strength passes forth and back across a threshold. Each cell responses to the damage with different time duration within which the oscillations persist. For the case of population of cells, the activities of p53 and Mdm2 proteins will be the population average of the individual cells, which results damped oscillations, due to the averaging over the cell population with the different response time. © 2009 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.