title: Heterodimer Autorepression Loop: A Robust and Flexible Pulse-Generating Genetic Module.
abstract: We investigate the dynamics of the heterodimer autorepression loop (HAL), a small genetic module in which a protein A acts as an autorepressor and binds to a second protein B to form an AB dimer. For suitable values of the rate constants, the HAL produces pulses of A alternating with pulses of B. By means of analytical and numerical calculations, we show that the duration of A pulses is extremely robust against variation of the rate constants while the duration of the B pulses can be flexibly adjusted. The HAL is thus a minimal genetic module generating robust pulses with a tunable duration, an interesting property for cellular signaling.
authors.affiliation: KU Leuven, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.|Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 8523-PhLAM-Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules, F-59000 Lille, France.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lannoo
authors.affiliation: KU Leuven, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Carlon
authors.affiliation: Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 8523-PhLAM-Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules, F-59000 Lille, France.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lefranc
mesh_terms: D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D014644:Genetic Variation; D011506:Proteins; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins