Feedback regulation of the heat shock response in E. coli

Abstract

Survival of organisms in extreme conditions has necessitated the evolution of stress response networks that detect and respond to environmental changes. Among the extreme conditions that cells must face is the exposure to higher than normal temperatures. In this paper, we propose a detailed biochemical model that captures the dynamical nature of the heat-shock response in Escherichia coli. Using this model, we show that both feedback and feedforward control are utilized to achieve robustness, performance, and efficiency of the response to the heat stress. We discuss the evolutionary advantages that feedback confers to the system, as compared to other strategies that could have been implemented to get the same performance.