Qualitative Behavior of a Metabolic Pathway with Hybrid Feedback

Abstract

We study the qualitative behavior of a model to represent local regulation in a metabolic network. The model is based on the end-product control structure introduced in [A. Goelzer, F. Bekkal Brikci, I. Martin-Verstraete et al., BMC Syst Biol 2 (2008), pp. 1--18]. In this class of regulation, the metabolite effector is the end-product of a metabolic pathway. We suppose the input to the pathway to switch between zero and a positive value according to the concentration of the metabolite effector. Considering the switched system as a differential inclusion, we prove that it converges to a globally uniformly asymptotically stable equilibrium point, reaches the sliding mode or oscillates around the sliding mode depending on the positive value of the input. Finally, we show that in any case the solution of the switched system is the limit of solutions of equation sequences with smooth or piecewise linear inputs.