Modeling the Mitogen Activated Protein (MAP)-Kinase Pathway Using Ordinary Differential Equations
Sharadwata Pan,
Sameer E. Mhatre
Issue:
Volume 1, Issue 2, April 2013
Pages:
6-9
Received:
30 April 2013
Published:
10 June 2013
Abstract: Mitogen Activated Protein (MAP) Kinase pathway is central to comprehend the key cellular signal transduction mechanisms in animal physiology, including human beings. Modeling MAP Kinase pathway has two main applications: deciphering a transient response of three main components (MAPKKK, MAPKK and MAPK) to regulate signaling and utilizing the models to make it behave as a potential drug target. The current study develops a mathematical representation for this transient cell-signaling pathway, based on a simple modular approach to structure and model a three-tier cascade. Based on assumptions from existing literature, ordinary differential equations have been formulated to express the concentrations of MAPKKK, MAPKK and MAPK as a function of time. Finally, the transient responses of the deduced concentrations of these components are analyzed to understand the pathway behavior and some interesting results are obtained by analyzing the temporal evolutions of the concentrations of the six components involved in the pathway. We conclude that the transient behaviour of MAPKKK can be captured with first order ordinary differential equations. Some anomalous behavior is observed in case of MAPKK and MAPK. In this perspective, future work can be designed to regulate the MAP Kinase signaling by taking Michaeli-Menten kinetics into consideration and make complex models to get more accurate results.
Abstract: Mitogen Activated Protein (MAP) Kinase pathway is central to comprehend the key cellular signal transduction mechanisms in animal physiology, including human beings. Modeling MAP Kinase pathway has two main applications: deciphering a transient response of three main components (MAPKKK, MAPKK and MAPK) to regulate signaling and utilizing the models...
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