Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation for Gene Expression and Regulation

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The general goal of this project is to establish research collaborations between mathematicians and experimental biologists at the Michigan State University and to train the graduate students in doing research in interdisciplinary fields. The proposed project is for the PI to work with Professor David N. Arnosti, a leading scientist in Molecular Genetics, at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University. The initial area of focus would be mathematical modeling and computer simulation for gene expression and regulation. A key objective of contemporary gene regulatory studies is to understand the activity of the transcriptional apparatus at a quantitative level. The central goal of this project is to meld modeling approaches with quantitative determinations of transcriptional switch activity for a limited set of relatively well-characterized transcriptional regulators in the Drosophila blastoderm embryo. Unlike other current high level network approaches that treat gene switches as black boxes, this project is to study in details the cis regulatory rules that affect the efficacy of transcriptional repressors in the context of blocks of activator sites within enhancer. The modeling of transcriptional regulation will aid mechanistic understanding of transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, provide new insights on the evolution of gene regulatory elements and networks, and will supply tools for predicting the quantitative output of cis regulatory elements.This IGMS project is jointly supported by the MPS Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA) and the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS).