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Modelling the Response of FOXO Transcription Factors to Multiple Post-Translational Modifications Made by Ageing-Related Signalling Pathways

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Graham Smith, Dr Daryl Shanley

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Abstract

FOXO transcription factors are an important, conserved family of regulators of cellular processes including metabolism, cell-cycle progression, apoptosis and stress resistance. They are required for the efficacy of several of the genetic interventions that modulate lifespan. FOXO activity is regulated by multiple post-translational modifications (PTMs) that affect its subcellular localization, half-life, DNA binding and transcriptional activity. Here, we show how a mathematical modelling approach can be used to simulate the effects, singly and in combination, of these PTMs. Our model is implemented using the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML), generated by an ancillary program and simulated in a stochastic framework. The use of the ancillary program to generate the SBML is necessary because the possibility that many regulatory PTMs may be added, each independently of the others, means that a large number of chemically distinct forms of the FOXO molecule must be taken into account, and the program is used to generate them. Although the model does not yet include detailed representations of events upstream and downstream of FOXO, we show how it can qualitatively, and in some cases quantitatively, reproduce the known effects of certain treatments that induce various single and multiple PTMs, and allows for a complex spatiotemporal interplay of effects due to the activation of multiple PTM-inducing treatments. Thus, it provides an important framework to integrate current knowledge about the behaviour of FOXO. The approach should be generally applicable to other proteins experiencing multiple regulations.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Smith GR, Shanley DP

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: PLoS ONE

Year: 2010

Volume: 5

Issue: 6

Print publication date: 14/06/2010

Date deposited: 03/09/2010

ISSN (print): 1932-6203

Publisher: Public Library of Science

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011092

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011092


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
BBC0082001BBSRC
FP6 036894EU

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