Bifurcation analysis of a mathematical model for genetic regulatory network with time delays

In this paper, we aim to investigate the dynamics of a gene regulatory network which is a time-delayed version of the model proposed by Elowitz and Leibler [Nature 403 (2000) 335–338]. Based on the normal form theory and center-manifold reduction, Hopf bifurcations including the bifurcation direction and stability of the bifurcated periodic orbits are investigated. We also discuss effects of transcriptional rate and time delay on the amplitude and period of the oscillation of the network. It shows that variations of time delay or transcriptional rate can change the period and amplitude of the oscillation. More precisely, (i) the amplitude increases with small time delay, while the change of amplitude is not sensitive to relatively large time delay. However, the robustness of amplitudes is not true any more for the case of using the transcriptional rate as parameter, where amplitude always increases quickly and linearly with the transcriptional rate; (ii) the period of oscillation increases as the time delay increases, but it grows up initially as the transcriptional rate increases and then keeps unchanged to certain constant value, which implies that the robustness of period to the transcriptional rate variations occurs. Our numerical simulations also support the theoretical conclusions, namely both suggest that time delay and transcriptional rate can be used as control parameters in genetic regulatory networks.