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The Use of Chemostats in Microbial Systems Biology
Published on: October 14, 2013
Characterizing multistationarity regimes in biochemical reaction networks
Irene Otero-Muras1, Julio R Banga, Antonio A Alonso
1Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Plos One
|July 18, 2012
Summary
This study introduces a method to identify bistable regimes in biochemical networks, aiding synthetic biology switch design and reverse engineering. The approach helps determine parameter regions for multistationarity, crucial for robust biological switches.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Systems Biology
- Chemical Reaction Network Theory
Background:
- Cellular systems commonly utilize switch-like responses for regulation.
- Bistability is a key property for designing functional biological switches.
- Chemical Reaction Network Theory (CRNT) can predict multistationarity based on network structure.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a method for characterizing bistable regimes in biochemical reaction networks.
- To aid in both the direct and reverse engineering of biological switches.
- To identify parameter regions that yield multistationarity.
Main Methods:
- Extending previous results from Chemical Reaction Network Theory (CRNT).
- Developing a condition on biochemical network parameters for multistationarity.
- Proposing an efficient computational method to assess parameter space satisfaction.
Main Results:
- A method to discriminate if a biochemical network can exhibit multiple steady states.
- Identification of parameter regions capable of producing multistationarity.
- A condition for the appearance of multistationarity in biochemical networks.
Conclusions:
- The presented method enhances the characterization of bistable regimes in biochemical networks.
- This approach is valuable for designing robust synthetic biological switches.
- It significantly reduces the feasible parameter space during model identification in reverse engineering.
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