Seventh Mississippi State - UAB Conference on Differential Equations and
Computational Simulations.
Electronic Journal of Differential Equations,
Conference 17 (2009), pp. 197-206. 

Title: A model for gene activation

Authors: Seth F. Oppenheimer, Ruping Fan, Stephan Pruett
 
Abstract: 
 The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for the activation of the
 gene responsible for the production of the cytokine interleukin 6, IL-6.
 This is motivated by experimental work that indicates that exposure to
 certain exogenous chemicals results in changes in cytokine production.  In
 particular, exposure to both the widely used pesticide atrazine and the
 legacy pesticide dieldrin, still very much present in the environment,
 resulted in the reduction of the production of IL-6.  We develop of model
 of twelve ordinary differential equations to model the effect of changes in
 transcription factor levels on IL-6 production rates and establish basic
 qualitative properties of solutions. 

Published April 15, 2009.
Math Subject Classifications: 92C17, 34A12.
Key Words: Gene activation; neurotoxons.