A current challenge in systems biology is to predict dynamic properties of cell behaviors from public information such as gene expression data. The temporal dynamics of signaling molecules is critical for mammalian cell commitment. We hypothesized that gene expression levels are tightly linked with and quantitatively control the dynamics of signaling networks regardless of the cell type. Based on this idea, we developed a computational method to predict the signaling dynamics from RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) gene expression data. We first constructed an ordinary differential equation model of ErbB receptor → c-Fos induction using a newly developed modeling platform BioMASS. The model was trained with kinetic parameters against multiple breast cancer cell lines using autologous RNA-seq data obtained from the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE) as the initial values of the model components. After parameter optimization, the model proceeded to prediction in another untrained breast cancer cell line. As a result, the model learned the parameters from other cells and was able to accurately predict the dynamics of the untrained cells using only the gene expression data. Our study suggests that gene expression levels of components within the ErbB network, rather than rate constants, can explain the cell-specific signaling dynamics, therefore playing an important role in regulating cell fate.
Keywords: ErbB signaling pathway; breast cancer; mathematical modeling; parameter estimation.