Caicedo-Casso, Angélica
Kang, Hye-Won
Lim, Sookkyung
Hong, Christian I.
Article History
Received: 10 February 2015
Accepted: 20 July 2015
First Online: 12 August 2015
Change Date: 12 January 2016
Change Type: Update
Change Details: A correction has been published and is appended to both the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.
Change Date: 12 January 2016
Change Type: Erratum
Change Details: Biological systems exhibit numerous oscillatory behaviors from calcium oscillations to circadian rhythms that recur daily. These autonomous oscillators contain complex feedbacks with nonlinear dynamics that enable spontaneous oscillations. The detailed nonlinear dynamics of such systems remains largely unknown. In this paper, we investigate robustness and dynamical differences of five minimal systems that may underlie fundamental molecular processes in biological oscillatory systems. Bifurcation analyses of these five models demonstrate an increase of oscillatory domains with a positive feedback mechanism that incorporates a reversible reaction, and dramatic changes in dynamics with small modifications in the wiring. Furthermore, our parameter sensitivity analysis and stochastic simulations reveal different rankings of hierarchy of period robustness that are determined by the number of sensitive parameters or network topology. In addition, systems with autocatalytic positive feedback loop are shown to be more robust than those with positive feedback via inhibitory degradation regardless of noise type. We demonstrate that robustness has to be comprehensively assessed with both parameter sensitivity analysis and stochastic simulations.
Competing interests
: The authors declare no competing financial interests.