Journal
COMPUTERS IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
Volume 166, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2023.107455
Keywords
Cell signaling; Cancer; Ras nanocluster; MAPK pathway; Cooperativity; Computational model
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This study presents a minimum computational model to analyze the growth and decay dynamics of K-Ras nanoclusters (NCs) and emphasizes the role of their size in regulating cell signaling. This opens up new possibilities for developing strategies for chronic diseases and cancer treatment.
K-Ras nanoclusters (NCs) concentrate all required molecules belonging to the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway in a small area where signaling events take place, increasing efficiency and specificity of signaling. Such nanostructures are characterized by controlled sizes and lifetimes distributions, but there is a poor understanding of the mechanisms involved in their dynamics of growth/decay. Here, a minimum computational model is presented to analyze the behavior of K-Ras NCs as cooperative dynamic structures that self-regulate their growth and decay according to their size. Indeed, the proposed model reveals that the growth and the local production of a K-Ras nanocluster depend positively on its actual size, whilst its lifetime is inversely proportional to the root of its size. The cooperative binding between the structural constituents of the NC (K-Ras proteins) induces oscillations in the size distributions of K-Ras NCs allowing them to range within controlled values, regulating the growth/decay dynamics of these NCs. Thereby, the size of a K-Ras NC is proposed as a key factor to regulate cell signaling, opening a range of possibilities to develop strategies for use in chronic diseases and cancer.
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