A Comparison of Cellular Oscillation Driven by Noise or Deterministic Mechanism under Cell Size Scaling

In this research project, one of the gene regulatory networks – p53 network is the object of investigation in the quest of verifying the scaling law through the comparison between theoretical analysis and experimental observation. This is attributed to the fact that different mechanisms for oscillations show different physical properties. In particular, Hopf Bifurcation in Deterministic Dynamics (HBDD) and Noise Driven Resonance (NDR) have been identified among other models as the mechanisms for comparison purposes.

Objectives

• To study the distribution of oscillation amplitudes when cell size changes
• To discern the differences between HBDD and NDR mechanisms by showing that when:
  1. The oscillation is driven by HBDD mechanism, the coefficient of variation (CV) of amplitude is scaled with an exponent of −0.5
  2. The oscillation is driven by NDR mechanism, the coefficient of variance (CV) would be invariant upon such operation