2014/03/26 by Mercedes Pérez Millán, Adrián G. Turjanski, Millán, Mercedes Pérez +1 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Mathematics · #FOS: Biological sciences #Gene Regulatory Network Analysis #Mathematical Biology Tumor Growth #Melanoma and MAPK Pathways #Molecular Networks (q-bio.MN) #q-bio.MN
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1403.6702
arxiv created 2014/03/26 · openalex publication_date 2014/03/26 · arxiv updated 2014/03/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways play an essential role in the transduction of environmental stimuli to the nucleus, thereby regulating a variety of cellular processes, including cell proliferation, differentiation and programmed cell death. The components of the MAPK extracellular activated protein kinase (ERK) cascade represent attractive targets for cancer therapy as their aberrant activation is a frequent event among highly prevalent human cancers. MAPK networks are a model for computational simulation, mostly using Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations. Key results showed that these networks can have switch-like behavior, bistability and oscillations. In this work, we consider three representative ERK networks, one with a negative feedback loop, which present a binomial steady state ideal under mass-action kinetics. We therefore apply the theoretical result present in Pérez Millán et. al (2012) to find a set of rate constants that allow two significantly different stable steady states in the same stoichiometric compatibility class for each network. Our approach makes it possible to study certain aspects of the system, such as multistationarity, without relying on simulation, since we do not assume a priori any constant but the topology of the network. As the performed analysis is general it could be applied to many other important biochemical networks.