Negative feedback is at the heart of cell cycle oscillations: active cyclin B-Cdk1 activates the Anaphase-Promoting Complex-Cyclosome, which triggers the degradation of cyclin B. In the early embryos of the frog Xenopus laevis, such cell cycle oscillations occur fast and periodically. In this paper by Pedro and Dani, we built several cell cycle oscillator models to show how single and multiple bistable switches in parts of the underlying regulatory network change the dynamical properties of the oscillations. The work reveals that having multiple such bistable switches can confer robustness to the oscillator. Excellent work, Pedro and Dani! Check out their paper in a special issue of MBoC journal.
