Finding Minimal Perturbations in Gene Regulatory Networks
Guy Karlebach
Abstract:
As genome-wide experiments accumulate, the biomedical community is obtaining a deeper
understanding of the interplay between genotype and phenotype. In particular, the
importance of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) in these processes is becoming widely
recognized.
Understanding GRNs is difficult since their dynamics can be highly complex, and because
experimental methods give only indirect clues on the underlying mechanisms that govern
the dynamics. Hence it is difficult to construct models for networks that have not been
extensively studied, especially when the number of participating entities is large. Logical
models are a partial solution to this problem as their level of abstraction relieves the
modeler from the need to provide fine details (e.g. kinetic constants).