A note on bistability of a two-gene competitive system

Abstract

Self-regulation together with mutual promoter competition provides a simple mechanism for bistability in gene-regulatory models. We study a two-gene system with regulatory terms of Hill exponent one, allowing distinct basal production rates and distinct degradation rates. Each gene product, when bound to its own promoter, may enhance or reduce production relative to the basal rate, while the two products compete through promoter occupancy. We show that the system has at least one and at most three equilibria in the positive quadrant. Exactly two positive equilibria can occur only if one nullcline intersection is degenerate; consequently, a configuration in which all positive nullcline intersections are transverse has either one or three positive equilibria. If there are exactly three distinct positive equilibria, then all three are automatically hyperbolic: the two outer equilibria are asymptotically stable nodes and the middle equilibrium is a saddle. Moreover, every positive solution converges to an equilibrium. Hence the positive quadrant is the disjoint union of the basins of attraction of the two stable nodes and the one-dimensional stable manifold of the saddle, yielding global bistability.