A design principle for posttranslational chaotic oscillators.
iScience 2021;
24:101946. [PMID:
33437934 PMCID:
PMC7786127 DOI:
10.1016/j.isci.2020.101946]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2020] [Revised: 12/02/2020] [Accepted: 12/11/2020] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
Chaos behavior has been observed in various cellular and molecular processes. Here, we modeled reversible phosphorylation dynamics to elucidate a design principle for autonomous chaos generation that may arise from generic enzymatic reactions. A comprehensive parameter search demonstrated that the reaction system composed of a set of kinases and phosphatases and two substrates with two modification sites exhibits chaos behavior. All reactions are described according to the Michaelis-Menten reaction scheme without exotic functions being applied to enzymes and substrates. Clustering analysis of parameter sets that can generate chaos behavior revealed the existence of motif structures. These chaos motifs allow the two-substrate species to interact via enzyme availability and constrain the two substrates' dynamic changes in phosphorylation status so that they occur at different timescales. This chaos motif structure is found in several enzymatic reactions, suggesting that chaos behavior may underlie cellular autonomy in a variety of biochemical systems.
Two substrates with reversible two-site phosphorylation can exhibit chaos behavior
The chaos does not require autocatalysis or allosteric regulation of enzymes
The chaos is a result of the coupling of two substrates via enzyme availability
Collapse