bistability and oscillations in gene regulation mediated by small noncoding rnas双稳态和振荡在基因调控由小非编码rna.pdf

Bistability and Oscillations in Gene Regulation Mediated by Small Noncoding RNAs 1,2 1 1 3 1 Dengyu Liu , Xiao Chang , Zengrong Liu , Luonan Chen , Ruiqi Wang * 1 Institute of Systems Biology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China, 2 College of Physics and Mathematics, Jinggangshan University, Ji’an, China, 3 Key Laboratory of Systems Biology, SIBS-Novo Nordisk Translational Research Centre for PreDiabetes, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China Abstract The interplay of small noncoding RNAs (sRNAs), mRNAs, and proteins has been shown to play crucial roles in almost all cellular processes. As key post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, the mechanisms and roles of sRNAs in various cellular processes still need to be fully understood. When participating in cellular processes, sRNAs mainly mediate mRNA degradation or translational repression. Here, we show how the dynamics of two minimal architectures is drastically affected by these two mechanisms. A comparison is also given to reveal the implication of the fundamental differences. This study may help us to analyze complex networks assembled by simple modules more easily. A better knowledge of the sRNA- mediated motifs is also of interest for bio-engineering and artificial control. Citation: Liu D, Chang X, Liu Z, Chen L, Wang R (2011) Bistability and Oscillations in Gene Regulation Mediated by Small Noncoding RNAs. PLoS ONE 6(3): e17029. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017029 Editor: Eshel Ben-Jacob, Tel Aviv University, Israel Received October 29, 2010; Accepted January 10, 2011; Published March 17, 2011 Copyright: 2011 Liu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, d