A Comparison Analysis of the Dynamics and Stability of Klotho Gene Network Through Discrete and Hybrid Models

摘要

Prior to the complexity risen form the large number of interacting components and the variety of the interactions within a biological system, discrete models - such as Boolean models, logical models, Petri nets, etc. - have been widely used, to highlight the system dynamics and stability. Regardless of their simplicity, these models can only give a qualitative description of the system properties, while they fail to describe quantitatively the system behaviour under internal/external perturbations. To bridge the gap between continuous and the discrete models, hybrid models have been developed, for a better description of the system behaviour. In this work, we give a comparison of the dynamical characteristics of these two approaches, applied on the Klotho gene - usually referred as the youth gene - with a special focus on its role on calcium and phosphate metabolism. The numerical results show the efficiency of the discrete and hybrid models to give qualitative information about the dynamics and stability of a gene regulatory system, when its kinetics is unknown (or partially known) and highlight the importance of this information, for a more detailed analysis and understanding of the system behaviour.