From cartoons to quantitative models in Golgi transport.

QUIROS, D. NICOLAS; MAYORGA, L.S.; NIETO, FRANCO

on line

Congreso; SAIB 2020; 2020

SAIB

FROM CARTOONS TO QUANTITATIVE MODELS IN GOLGI TRANSPORTFranco Nieto1, D. Nicolas Quiros1,2, and Luis S. Mayorga1,21IHEM (Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, CONICET), 2Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Mendoza, Argentina.lmayorga@fcm.uncu.edu.arCell biology is evolving to become a more formal and quantitative science. In particular, several mathematical models have been proposed to address Golgi self-organization and protein and lipid transport. However, most scientific articles about the Golgi apparatus are still using static cartoons that miss the dynamism of this organelle. In this report, we show that schematic drawings of Golgi trafficking can be easily translated into an Agent-Based Model using the Repast platform. The simulations generate an active interplay among cisternae and vesicles rendering quantitative predictions about Golgi stability and transport of soluble and membrane-associated cargoes. The models can incorporate complex networks of molecular interactions and chemical reactions by association with COPASI, a software that handles Ordinary Differential Equations. The strategy described provides a simple, flexible, and multiscale support to analyze Golgi transport. The simulations can be used to address issues directly linked to the mechanism of transport or as a way to incorporate the complexity of trafficking to other cellular processes that occur in dynamic organelles. We show that the rules implicitly present in most schematic representations of intracellular trafficking can be used to build dynamic models with quantitative outputs that can be compared with experimental results.