[On possible role of chaotic behavior of the gene regulation system in aging].
1. The facts of biology of aging say that the modification of activity of few key genes may lead to the significant increase of life span. 2. The experiments with computational models of gene regulation show that these models are characterized by metastable behavior typical for the chaotic systems. 3. The force of mortality in Gompertz equation grows exponentially in time. It allows to hypothesize that at least at the level of gene regulation aging can be a chaotic process (here implied that chaos is a kind of the complex systems dynamics controlled by strictly determined rules). This approach allows to describe aging from the view point of the information theory--as the forgetting of the right functioning of the organism (i.e. forgetting the state of health) caused by fluctuations (weak nonspecific influencies on the system). Average rate of such forgetting (described by parameter, named Lyapunov exponent) could be identified with the exponent of mortality rate in Gompertz equation. And the parameter inverse to Lyapunov's exponent (Lyapunov time), that describes the time of the initial (healthy) state forgetting, well corresponds to the time of the puberty beginning (i.e. the minimal time for the healthy state to be kept) for human beings, mice, and fruit flies (organisms whose parameters of aging are most perfectly known).
Soloviev
M V
MV
N.N. Petrov Research Institute of Oncology, 197758, St. Petersburg, Pesochny-2, Leningradskaya, 68. msoloviev@mail.ru
D000375:Aging / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics