STOCHASTIC MODELING AND SIMULATION FOR BUDDING YEAST CELL CYCLE

Abstract

The genetic regulatory system of budding yeast has been widely studied recently since it gives a significant insight into the genetic regulation of higher organisms such as human beings. Therefore, a mathematical model is required to investigate the molecular interactions during a cell cycle process. One of the challenges in computational molecular biology is to build and implement a robust modeling technique that can describe and predict a biological system properly. A mathematical model based on a deterministic approach was introduced by Chen et al. (2000) to describe interactions between components of budding yeast cell cycle. However, this model cannot reveal a mesoscopic view of the system such as molecular fluctuations. Hence, in this project, we design and develop a mathematical model for budding yeast cell cycle based on a stochastic framework. We start by formulating molecular interactions of cell cycle components as well as physical events. Then we try to simulate a complete cell cycle using an appropriate simulation algorithm. Next, we analyze and verify the results. Finally, we give a concluding remark about the model and suggest possible future research works in this area.