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Rapid Characterization of Cellular Pathways Using Time-Varying Signals

The use of traditional tools for the discovery and characterization of biological systems has resulted in a wealth of biological knowledge. Unfortunately, only a small portion of the biological world is well-understood to date, and the study of the rest remains a daunting task. This work involves using time-varying stimuli in order to more rapidly interrogate and characterize signaling pathways. The time-dependent stimulation of a signaling pathway can be used in conjunction with a model of the pathway to efficiently evaluate and test hypotheses. We are developing this technology using the yeast pheromone signal transduction pathway as a model system. The time-varying stimuli will be applied to the yeast cells via a novel microfluidic device, and the pathway output will be measured via various fluorescent reporters. The output of the pathway can then be compared to the output from a computational model of the pathway in order to test hypotheses and constrain our knowledge of the pathway. Initial work shows that a computational model can be used to identify stimuli time-courses that increase the parameter sensitivity, meaning that corresponding experiments could potentially be much more informative. / Poster presented at the 2005 ICSB meeting, held at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/29803
Date21 October 2005
CreatorsThomson, Ty M, Endy, Drew
PublisherInternational Conference on Systems Biology
Source SetsM.I.T. Theses and Dissertation
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePresentation, Other
Format2764288 bytes, application/vnd.ms-powerpoint

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