Asymptotic limit in a cell differentiation model with consideration of transcription

Avner Friedman, Chiu Yen Kao, Chih-Wen Shih*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

T cells of the immune system, upon maturation, differentiate into either Th1 or Th2 cells that have different functions. The decision to which cell type to differentiate depends on the concentrations of transcription factors T-bet (x 1) and GATA-3 (x 2). These factors are translated by the mRNA whose levels of expression, y 1 and y 2, depend, respectively, on x 1 and x 2 in a nonlinear nonlocal way. The population density of T cells, φ(t, x 1, x 2, y 1, y 2), satisfies a hyperbolic conservation law with coefficients depending nonlinearly and nonlocally on (t, x 1, x 2, y 1, y 2), while the x i, y i satisfy a system of ordinary differential equations. We study the long time behavior of φ and show, under some conditions on the parameters of the system of differential equations, that the gene expressions in the T-cell population aggregate at one, two or four points, which connect to various cell differentiation scenarios.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5679-5711
Number of pages33
JournalJournal of Differential Equations
Volume252
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 May 2012

Keywords

  • Cell differentiation
  • Conservation law
  • Integro-differential equation
  • MRNA
  • Multistationary
  • Th1/Th2 cells
  • Transcription factors

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