1. T. Kang, R. Moore, Y. Li, E.D. Sontag, and L. Bleris. Discriminating direct and indirect connectivities in biological networks. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 112:12893-12898, 2015. [PDF] Keyword(s): modular response analysis, stochastic systems, reverse engineering, gene networks, synthetic biology, feedforward, systems biology. Abstract:

   Reverse engineering of biological pathways involves an iterative process between experiments, data processing, and theoretical analysis. In this work, we engineer synthetic circuits, subject them to perturbations, and then infer network connections using a combination of nonparametric single-cell data resampling and modular response analysis. Intriguingly, we discover that recovered weights of specific network edges undergo divergent shifts under differential perturbations, and that the particular behavior is markedly different between different topologies. Investigating topological changes under differential perturbations may address the longstanding problem of discriminating direct and indirect connectivities in biological networks.




2. V. Shimoga, J.T. White, Y. Li, E.D. Sontag, and L. Bleris. Synthetic mammalian transgene negative autoregulation. Molecular Systems Biology, 9:670-, 2013. [PDF] Keyword(s): systems biology, synthetic biology, gene expression. Abstract:

   Using synthetic circuits stably integrated in human kidney cells, we study the effect of negative feedback regulation on cell-wide (extrinsic) and gene-specific (intrinsic) sources of uncertainty. We develop a theoretical approach to extract the two noise components from experiments and show that negative feedback reduces extrinsic noise while marginally increasing intrinsic noise, resulting to significant total noise reduction. We compare the results to simple negative regulation, where a constitutively transcribed transcription factor represses a reporter protein. We observe that the control architecture also reduces the extrinsic noise but results in substantially higher intrinsic fluctuations. We conclude that negative feedback is the most efficient way to mitigate the effects of extrinsic fluctuations by a sole regulatory wiring.

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