Estimating the Parameters of Cyclin-Triggered Gene Expression in Cell Cycle Control Network

In this paper we describe a new maximum likelihood approach to infer kinetic rate constants from time-course data and apply it to estimate the rate constants of the synthesis and degradation of the mRNA of Cdc20 protein, and the rate constant of the transcription of the cdc20 gene into Cdc20 protein. The Cdc20 protein plays a crucial role in eukaryotic cell cycle, as it codes for the cyclin antagonist in the cell cycle control network. We used micro-array data for the time-course of the level of mRNA of Cdc20. We show that our method provides parameter estimates able to reproduce the observed cyclin-induced oscillations of the Cdc20 transcript.