The irreversibility of cell-cycle transitions is commonly thought to derive from the irreversible degradation of certain regulatory proteins. We argue that irreversible transitions in the cell cycle (or in any other molecular control system) cannot be attributed to a single molecule or reaction, but that they derive from feedback signals in reaction networks. This systems-level view of irreversibility is supported by many experimental observations.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to G. J. Gorbsky for discussion. Work done in the authors' laboratory is supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation (21002050), the European Commission (YSBN: LSHG-CT-2005-018942) and OTKA (F-60414). A.C.N. is a Bolyai fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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Novak, B., Tyson, J., Gyorffy, B. et al. Irreversible cell-cycle transitions are due to systems-level feedback. Nat Cell Biol 9, 724–728 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb0707-724
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb0707-724
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