Accepted_test

Identification of the mechanisms underlying the genetic control of spatial structure formation is among the relevant tasks of developmental biology. Both experimental and theoretical approaches and methods are used for this purpose, including gene network methodology, as well as mathematical and computer modeling. Reconstruction and analysis of the gene networks that provide the formation of traits allow us to integrate the existing experimental data and to identify the key links and intra-network connections that ensure the function of networks. Mathematical and computer modeling is used to obtain the dynamic characteristics of the studied systems and to predict their state and behavior. An example of the spatial morphological structure is the Drosophila bristle pattern with a strictly defined arrangement of its components, mechanoreceptors. The mechanoreceptor develops from a single sensory organ parental cell (SOPC), which is isolated from the ectoderm cells of the imaginal disk. The SOPC status is determined by the gene network we earlier reconstructed and the AS-C (achaete-scute proneural gene complex) is the key component of this network. AS-C activity is controlled by its subnetwork—the central regulatory circuit (CRC).

The goal of this work was to construct a mathematical model of CRC operation taking into account the roles of the constituent genes that would comprehensively describe the intracellular events in presumptive SOPC determining the dynamics of ASC (proneural proteins) content and to perform the computer experiments for verifying the model stability and its compliance with experimental data.