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Irreversible cell-cycle transitions are due to systems-level feedback

Nature Cell Biology volume 9, pages 724–728 (2007)Cite this article

The irreversibility of cell-cycle transitions is commonly thought to derive from the irreversible degradation of certain regulatory proteins. We argue that irreversible transitions in the cell cycle (or in any other molecular control system) cannot be attributed to a single molecule or reaction, but that they derive from feedback signals in reaction networks. This systems-level view of irreversibility is supported by many experimental observations.

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Figure 1: An irreversible mechanical switch.
Figure 2: Schematic representation of the molecular mechanisms underlying cell-cycle transitions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to G. J. Gorbsky for discussion. Work done in the authors' laboratory is supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation (21002050), the European Commission (YSBN: LSHG-CT-2005-018942) and OTKA (F-60414). A.C.N. is a Bolyai fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bela Novak is in the Oxford Centre for Integrative Systems Biology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QU, UK. bela.novak@bioch.ox.ac.uk,

    Bela Novak

  2. John J. Tyson is in the Department of Biological Sciences, M.C. 0406, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.,

    John J. Tyson

  3. Bela Gyorffy is in the Molecular Network Dynamics Research Group, The Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Gellert ter 4, H-1521 Budapest, Hungary.,

    Bela Gyorffy

  4. Attila Czikasz-Nagy is in the Microsoft Research-University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems Biology, Piazza Manci 17, Povo (Trento), 38100, Italy.,

    Attila Csikasz-Nagy

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  1. Bela Novak
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Novak, B., Tyson, J., Gyorffy, B. et al. Irreversible cell-cycle transitions are due to systems-level feedback. Nat Cell Biol 9, 724–728 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb0707-724

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