Structural properties and asymptotic behaviour of bacterial Two-Component Systems

Irene Zorzan¹Chiara Cimolato¹Luca Schenato¹Massimo Bellato^1,2,3*

• ¹Universita degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Ingegneria Dell'Informazione, Padua, Italy
• ²University of Padua, Padua, Italy
• ³Universita degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Medicina Molecolare, Padua, Italy

Bacteria rely on two-component signaling systems (TCSs) to detect environmental cues and orchestrate adaptive responses. Despite their apparent simplicity, TCSs exhibit a rich spectrum of dynamic behaviors arising from network architectures, such as bifunctional enzymes, multi-step phosphorelays, transcriptional feedback loops, and auxiliary interactions. This work develops a generalized mathematical model of a TCS that integrates these various elements. Through systems-level analysis, we elucidate how the network architecture and biochemical parameters shape key properties such as stability, monotonicity, and signal amplification. Analytical conditions are derived for when the steady-state levels of phosphorylated proteins exhibit robustness to variations in protein abundance. The model characterizes how equilibrium phosphorylation levels depend on the absolute and relative abundances of the two components. Specific scenarios are explored, including the MprAB system from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the EnvZ/OmpR system from textit Escherichia coli, to describe the potential role of reverse phosphotransfer reactions. By combining mechanistic modeling with system-level techniques, such as nullcline analysis, this study offers a unified perspective on the design principles that underlie the versatility of bacterial signal transduction. The generalized modeling framework lays a theoretical foundation for interpreting experimental dynamics and rationally engineering synthetic TCS circuits with prescribed response dynamics.