Analysis of gene network robustness based on saturated fixed point attractors.

ABSTRACT: The analysis of gene network robustness to noise and mutation is important for fundamental and practical reasons. Robustness refers to the stability of the equilibrium expression state of a gene network to variations of the initial expression state and network topology. Numerical simulation of these variations is commonly used for the assessment of robustness. Since there exists a great number of possible gene network topologies and initial states, even millions of simulations may be still too small to give reliable results. When the initial and equilibrium expression states are restricted to being saturated (i.e., their elements can only take values 1 or -1 corresponding to maximum activation and maximum repression of genes), an analytical gene network robustness assessment is possible. W

SUBMITTER: Li G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3998189 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature