Cell commitment motif composed of progenitor-specific TF and fate-decision motif

Abstract

Mutual-inhibition motif is frequently-occuring motif in transcriptional regulatory networks for cell lineage commitment. Stable attractors represent cell commitment state. But how progenitor-specific transcription factors stabilize progenitor cells and commit them to different cell fates remains unexplained. In this paper we represent the motif for cell commitment, composed of mutual-inhibition motif and progenitor-specific transcription factor, and develop associated mathematical model. In the analysis of bifurcation and dynamical simulation, the model could exhibit multiple steady stable states and transition between them, cooresponding to progenitor, committed cell state and different commitment processes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that different commitment patterns, for example that of hematopoitic stem cell and neural stem cell, could be represented with different bifurcation features.