Transient Pulse Formation in Jasmonate Signaling Pathway

TL;DR

This paper develops a mathematical model of the jasmonate signaling pathway in plants, revealing how feedback loops generate transient pulses of gene expression consistent with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal model incorporating feedback loops to explain transient JA pulses and compares mechanisms of pulse formation with other biological systems.

Findings

Model reproduces experimental pulse dynamics

Pulse amplitude and timing depend on key parameters

Both deterministic and stochastic analyses conducted

Abstract

The jasmonate (JA) signaling pathway in plants is activated as defense response to a number of stresses like attacks by pests or pathogens and wounding by animals. Some recent experiments provide significant new knowledge on the molecular detail and connectivity of the pathway. The pathway has two major components in the form of feedback loops, one negative and the other positive. We construct a minimal mathematical model, incorporating the feedback loops, to study the dynamics of the JA signaling pathway. The model exhibits transient gene expression activity in the form of JA pulses in agreement with experimental observations. The dependence of the pulse amplitude, duration and peak time on the key parameters of the model is determined computationally. The deterministic and stochastic aspects of the pathway dynamics are investigated using both the full mathematical model as well as a reduced version of it. We also compare the mechanism of pulse formation with the known mechanisms of pulse generation in some bacterial and viral systems.