A Systems Biological Perspective of Cellular Stress-Directed Programmed Cell Death

Orsolya Kapuy, Beáta Lizák, Ibolya Stiller, Gábor Bánhegyi

Department of Medical Chemistry, Molecular Biology and Pathobiochemistry, Semmelweis University,Budapest, Hungary.

DOI: 10.4236/cmb.2014.41003                

Abstract

Each eukaryotic cell of multicellular organisms must be able to maintain its integrity by sensing both external and internal stimuli. The primary goal of the generated response mechanism is to drive back the system to the former or to a new homeostatic state. Moreover, the response has to provide an accurate survival-or-death decision to avoid any “misunderstanding” and its unwanted consequences. New data revealed that a systems-level crosstalk of molecular networks has an essential role in achieving the correct characteristic of the response. Although many molecular components of these processes already have been revealed, several elements and regulatory connections of crosstalk are still missing. These “gaps” of the complex control networks make hardly impossible to present comprehensive models. Therefore we approach the questions from a systems biology aspect by combining the experimental results with the special technique of mathematical modelling. In this short report we discuss some novel and preliminary data gained by this approach on the crosstalk between life and death decisions under cellular stress, to get a systems biological view of these networks.

Keywords

Systems Biology; Cellular Stress; Autophagy; Apoptosis; Crosstalk; Mathematical Modelling

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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