Stochastic and deterministic models of cellular p53 regulation and drug response

• Author / Creator

  Leenders, Gerry B

• The protein p53 is a key regulator of cellular response to a wide variety of stresses. In cancerous cells inhibitory regulators of the p53 protein such as MDM2 and MDMX are often overexpressed. In silico techniques could be used to inform the selection of interactions to target with novel drug molecules to make the drug development process more efficient. This work furthers these efforts in two ways. Firstly by investigating some of the roles of stochasticity in determining system behavior, and secondly by developing a model of p53 MDM2 and MDMX interactions and attempting to use it to predict the best targets for future drugs. Stochasticity is shown to be able to effect system behavior profoundly, with implications for future work in both theory and experiment. Lack of experimental data is found to limit the effectiveness of attempts to theoretically determine good drug targets.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Models
  • Stochastic
  • Mdm2
  • Arf
  • P53
  • Mdmx

• Graduation date

  Fall 2012

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3W592

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.