Modeling Biological Networks
IV.1 Coordinators
IV.2 Participants
IV.3 Introduction
IV.4 Background and Significance
IV.5 Research Plan IV.6 Specific Subprojects
IV.7 Connection to Specific Projects 2 (cytoskeleton) and 3 (organogenesis)
IV.8 Timeline
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IV.5.ii.d Synopsis:
Our preliminary analyses suggest that, on different levels of hierarchical cellular organization, the connectivity of cellular networks follows a scale-free power-law distribution. This common structure suggests evolutionary selection for robust and error-tolerant architecture, which is ultimately genome derived, and represents a "genomic" constraint. Statistical analyses of large-scale gene expression profiles can reveal critical functional relations between individual cellular constituents. Thus the simultaneous analysis of cellular networks on different levels of hierarchical organization is a powerful approach to predicting constraints on organisms. We have already uncovered significant correlations between a gene's topological and statistical properties and the lethality of its deletion (Jeong et al., 2001). Our key challenge is to understand in detail the rules and principles which govern this underlying structure and its function.