Coupling the Cell cycle and the Circadian Cycle

Abstract

Cancer treatments based on the administration of medicines at different times of the day have been shown to be more efficient against malign cells and less damaging towards healthy ones. These results might be related to the recent discovery of links between the circadian clock, (controlled by the light/dark cycle of a day), and the cell cycle. However, if many models have been developed to describe both of these cycles, to our knowledge none has described a real interaction between them. We will try to establish a relation at a molecular level and we will then study the conditions of entrainment in period of these cycles with the modeling environment BIOCHAM. In other words, we will search how and where in the parameter space of our model the two cycles get synchronized. This technical report will insist on the conditions of entrainment of the cell cycle by the circadian cycle via a common protein kinase WEE1.

Publication
Research Report