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GRASP Seminar: Domitilla del Vecchio, University of Michigan, “Modular Cell Biology: Retroactivity and Insulation”

November 2, 2007 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Abstract: Modularity plays a fundamental role in the prediction of the behavior of a system from the behavior of its components, guaranteeing that the properties of individual components do not change upon interconnection. Just as electrical, hydraulic, and other physical systems often do not display modularity, nor do many biochemical systems, and specifically, genetic networks. Here, we study the effect of interconnections on the input/output dynamic characteristics of transcriptional components, focusing on a property, which we call “retroactivity,” that plays a role analogous to non-zero output impedance in electrical systems. In transcriptional networks, retroactivity is large when the amount of transcription factor is comparable to, or smaller than, the amount of promoter binding sites, or when the affinity of such binding sites is high. In order to attenuate the effect of retroactivity, we propose a feedback mechanism inspired by the design of amplifiers in electronics. We introduce, in particular, a mechanism based on a phosphorylation/dephosphorylation cycle. This mechanism enjoys a remarkable insulation property, due to the fast time scales of the phosphorylation and dephosphorylation reactions.

Presenter

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Domitilla del Vecchio is Assistant Profesor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She received her Ph.D. in Control and Dynamical Systems from Caltech in 2005. Her research interests include state estimation and control in multi-agent decision and control systems, and modular design of gene transcriptional circuits.

Details

Date:
November 2, 2007
Time:
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Event Category: