Reduction and Stability Analysis of a Transcription–Translation Model of RNA Polymerase

Model Reduction for Kinetic Models of Biological Systems

High dimensionality continues to be a challenge in computational systems biology. The kinetic models of many phenomena of interest are high-dimensional and complex, resulting in large computational effort in the simulation. Model order reduction (MOR) is a mathematical technique that is used to reduce the computational complexity of high-dimensional systems by approximation with lower dimensional systems, while retaining the important information and properties of the full order system. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is a method based on Galerkin projection that can be used for reducing the model order. POD is considered an optimal linear approach since it obtains the minimum squared distance between the original model and its reduced representation. However, POD may represent a restriction for nonlinear systems. By applying the POD method for nonlinear systems, the complexity to solve the nonlinear term still remains that of the full order model. To overcome the complexity for nonlinear terms in the dynamical system, an approach called the discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM) can be used. In this paper, we discuss model reduction by POD and DEIM to reduce the order of kinetic models of biological systems and illustrate the approaches on some examples. Additional computational costs for setting up the reduced order system pay off for large-scale systems. In general, a reduced model should not be expected to yield good approximations if different initial conditions are used from that used to produce the reduced order model. We used the POD method of a kinetic model with different initial conditions to compute the reduced model. This reduced order model is able to predict the full order model for a variety of different initial conditions.

Small binding-site clearance delays are not negligible in gene expression modeling

During the templated biopolymerization processes of transcription and translation, a macromolecular machine, either an RNA polymerase or a ribosome, binds to a specific site on the template. Due to the sizes of these enzymes, there is a waiting time before one clears the binding site and another can bind. These clearance delays are relatively short, and one might think that they could be neglected. However, in the case of transcription, these clearance delays are associated with conservation laws, resulting in surprisingly large effects on the bifurcation diagrams in models of gene expression networks. We study an example of this phenomenon in a model of a gene regulated by a non-coding RNA displaying bistability. Neglecting the binding-site clearance delays in this model can only be compensated for by making ad hoc, unphysical adjustments to the model's kinetic constants.

Hybrid models of genetic networks: Mathematical challenges and biological relevance

We review results concerning dynamics in a class of hybrid ordinary differential equations which incorporates logical control to yield piecewise linear equations. These equations relate qualitative features of the structure of networks to qualitative properties of the dynamics. Because of their simple structure, they have been studied using techniques from discrete mathematics and nonlinear dynamics. Initially developed as a qualitataive description of gene regulatory networks, many generalizations of the basic approach have been developed. In particular, we show how this qualitative approach may be adapted to switching biochemical systems without degradation, illustrated by an example of a motif in which two branches of a pathway may be regulated differently when the thresholds for the two pathways are separated.