Stability analysis

In figure 3.1, we can see the receptor activation is the prerequisite to activate the whole pathway. The stability of the whole pathway is decided by the state of receptor. The full structure of receptor is showed in Figure 1. However, before parameter estimation by using experimental data, because both values of rates to synthesize and to degrade the receptor are unknown, there are two possibilities for the evolution of receptor: dissipation or constant.

Figure 1: Full structure of receptor.

In the case of dissapating Ste2

If the rate of receptor degradation is larger than the rate of receptor generation, the receptor will dissipate towards zero in the end. As a consequence, the states in the following pathway will recover to the initial states based on mass balance. Thus, GFP will definitely degrade to zero asymptotically.

Figure 2: Structure of dissipating receptor.

Table 1: Initial concentrations and steady states.

In this sense, there is only one steady state and no bifurcation. The steady states are listed in Table 1.

Table 2: Eigenvalues of Jacobian.

When analysing the system by linearization as above, the eigenvalues of full Jacobian A contains both zeros and values of negative real-part, leading to undertermined conclusion for original nonlinear system. However, because of mass balance, 6 out of total 17 species are conserved values including Sst2a (Sst2), Fus3a (Fus3), Ste12 (Ste12a), and GaGTP, C, D in the big cycle of combining G-protein and MAPK cascade. They are linear combinations of particle numbers that do not vary during the time evolution of the system. Each conservation relation can be used to eliminate one variable of the system, leading to a reduced system with a smaller number of variables. These variables are called the independent variables of the system; the dependent variables are defined as linear combinations of independent variables.Technically finding the conservation relation means finding rows in the stoichiometry matrix that can be expressed as linear combinations of other rows.

By using COPASI which uses Householder QR factorization [9] to reduce model, the Jacobian of reduced model can be calculated and its eigenvalues are showed in Table 2.

In the case of accumulating or constant Ste2

Figure 3: Structure of constant receptor.

If the rate of receptor degradation is larger than the rate of receptor generation, the receptor will accumulate till reaching the possible maximum value. The pathway will continuously be activated, and GFP accumulates without constraints, so the system is unstable.

Sensitivity analysis

Values can be tuned: initial concentration of Ste2, Vht2hd, VGa2ht, VGFPmRNAsyn