Theoretical approaches for the dynamics of complex biological systems from information of networks.

Abstract

Modern biology has provided many examples of large networks describing the interactions between multiple species of bio-molecules. It is believed that the dynamics of molecular activities based on such networks are the origin of biological functions. On the other hand, we have a limited understanding for dynamics of molecular activity based on networks. To overcome this problem, we have developed two structural theories, by which the important aspects of the dynamical properties of the system are determined only from information on the network structure, without assuming other quantitative details. The first theory, named Linkage Logic, determines a subset of molecules in regulatory networks, by which any long-term dynamical behavior of the whole system can be identified/controlled. The second theory, named Structural Sensitivity Analysis, determines the sensitivity responses of the steady state of chemical reaction networks to perturbations of the reaction rate. The first and second theories investigate the dynamical properties of regulatory and reaction networks, respectively. The first theory targets the attractors of the regulatory network systems, whereas the second theory applies only to the steady states of the reaction network systems, but predicts their detailed behavior. To demonstrate the utility of our methods several biological network systems, and show they are practically useful to analyze behaviors of biological systems.