Analyzing and Exploiting the Effects of Protease Sharing in Genetic Circuits

Abstract

Degradation of proteins in cells plays a large role in the dynamics of gene networks. This degradation is enabled by proteases, which are found in limited quantities in the cell. Proteins that compete for protease may therefore become coupled by non-explicit interactions, which are often neglected in mathematical models. In this work, we develop a model for these non-explicit interactions in gene networks. We examine the effects of protease sharing on the number of equilibria of a system and on the steady state protein concentrations. As a consequence of this analysis, we find that protease sharing effects may be used to cancel undesirable effects due to ribosome sharing.