title: Construction of an effective landscape for multistate genetic switches.
abstract: Multistate genetic switches play a crucial role during embryonic development and tumorigenesis. An archetypical example is the three-way switch regulating epithelial-hybrid-mesenchymal transitions. We devise a special WKB-based approach to investigate white Gaussian and shot noise effects on three-way switches, and construct an effective landscape in good quantitative agreement with stochastic simulations. This approach allows efficient analytical or numerical calculation of the landscape contours, the optimal path, and the state relative stability for general multicomponent multistate switches.
authors.affiliation: Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1827, USA.
authors.forename: Mingyang
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1827, USA.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Onuchic
authors.affiliation: Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005-1827, USA and School of Physics and Astronomy and The Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel.
authors.forename: Eshel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ben-Jacob
mesh_terms: D063646:Carcinogenesis / Q000235:genetics; D047108:Embryonic Development / Q000235:genetics; D058750:Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition / Q000235:genetics; D005812:Genes, Switch; D008957:Models, Genetic