Condensing Biochemistry into Gene Regulatory Networks

Abstract

Gene Regulatory Networks are models of gene regulation. Inferring such model from genome-wide gene-expression measurements is one of the key challenges in modern biology, and a large number of algorithms have been proposed for this task. As there is still much confusion in the current literature as to what precisely Gene Regulatory Networks are, it is important to provide a definition that is as unambiguous as possible. In this paper the author provides such a definition and explain what Gene Regulatory Networks are in terms of the underlying biochemical processes. The author will use a linear approximation to the in general non-linear kinetics underlying interactions in biochemical systems and show how a biochemical system can be ‘condensed' into a more compact description, i.e. Gene Regulatory Networks. Important differences between the defined Gene Regulatory Networks and other network models for gene regulation, i.e. Transcriptional Regulatory Networks and Co-Expression Networks, are also discussed.