Biomolecular stabilisation near the unstable equilibrium of a biological system

Conference paper (2019)

Authors

Christian Cuba Samaniego Arizona State University
Nicholas A. Delateur Massachusetts Institute of Technology
G. Giordano Team Tamas Keviczky - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering , Università di Trento
Elisa Franco University of California
Research Group
Team Tamas Keviczky (Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering) (TU Delft)
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Published Date

2019

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Department

Delft Center for Systems and Control

Research Group

Team Tamas Keviczky

Abstract

We describe an approach to stabilize a bistable biological system near its unstable equilibrium using a molecular feedback controller. As a case study we focus on the classical toggle switch by Gardner and Collins. The controller relies on two parallel sequestration motifs, which yield two control species influencing the production rates of the toggle switch proteins. We show that the controller reshapes the equilibrium landscape to a single equilibrium. With numerical simulations we illustrate the effectiveness of our approach in stabilizing the closed-loop system around this unique equilibrium, which falls in a neighborhood of the toggle switch unstable equilibrium, if the controller parameters are properly tuned.