Tieri, P; Grignolio, A; Zaikin, A; Mishto, M; Remondini, D; Castellani, GC; Franceschi, C; (2010) Network, degeneracy and bow tie. Integrating paradigms and architectures to grasp the complexity of the immune system. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling , 7 (32) 10.1186/1742-4682-7-32.

Preview

PDF 1742-4682-7-32.pdf Download (948kB)

Abstract

Recently, the network paradigm, an application of graph theory to biology, has proven to be a powerful approach to gaining insights into biological complexity, and has catalyzed the advancement of systems biology. In this perspective and focusing on the immune system, we propose here a more comprehensive view to go beyond the concept of network. We start from the concept of degeneracy, one of the most prominent characteristic of biological complexity, defined as the ability of structurally different elements to perform the same function, and we show that degeneracy is highly intertwined with another recently-proposed organizational principle, i.e. 'bow tie architecture'. The simultaneous consideration of concepts such as degeneracy, bow tie architecture and network results in a powerful new interpretative tool that takes into account the constructive role of noise (stochastic fluctuations) and is able to grasp the major characteristics of biological complexity, i.e. the capacity to turn an apparently chaotic and highly dynamic set of signals into functional information.

Download activity - last month

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVJSONXML

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item