Coupling of Self-activating Genes Induces Spontaneous Synchronized Oscillations in Cells

Jesus Miro-Bueno

2015

Abstract

Genetic oscillators are present in a wide range of organisms from bacteria to neurons and coordinate important biological functions. Current models of genetic oscillators are based on auto-repressed genes. In these models a gene produces a repressor protein that binds to the promoter of its own gene repressing the transcription. Different versions of these models have been studied in living organisms and for engineering synthetic clocks. Synchronization of genetic clocks based on this model has also been studied. However, genes with positive feedbacks are also present in natural and synthetic genetic clocks. These self-activating genes provide robustness and frequency tuning to genetic clocks. In this paper we show a novel role of self-activating genes. We demonstrate that the coupling of self-activating genes by small molecules in a cell population produces synchronized oscillations. Our model could be useful for engineering new robust multicellular clocks and better understanding of natural genetic oscillators.

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Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Miro-Bueno J. (2015). Coupling of Self-activating Genes Induces Spontaneous Synchronized Oscillations in Cells . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms - Volume 1: BIOINFORMATICS, (BIOSTEC 2015) ISBN 978-989-758-070-3, pages 121-127. DOI: 10.5220/0005216801210127


in Bibtex Style

@conference{bioinformatics15,
author={Jesus Miro-Bueno},
title={Coupling of Self-activating Genes Induces Spontaneous Synchronized Oscillations in Cells},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms - Volume 1: BIOINFORMATICS, (BIOSTEC 2015)},
year={2015},
pages={121-127},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005216801210127},
isbn={978-989-758-070-3},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Bioinformatics Models, Methods and Algorithms - Volume 1: BIOINFORMATICS, (BIOSTEC 2015)
TI - Coupling of Self-activating Genes Induces Spontaneous Synchronized Oscillations in Cells
SN - 978-989-758-070-3
AU - Miro-Bueno J.
PY - 2015
SP - 121
EP - 127
DO - 10.5220/0005216801210127