We introduce the Dynamic Influence Network (DIN), a novel visual analytics technique for representing and analyzing rule-based models of protein-protein interaction networks. Rule-based modeling has proved instrumental in developing biological models that are concise, comprehensible, easily extensible, and that mitigate the combinatorial complexity of multi-state and multi-component biological molecules. Our technique visualizes the dynamics of these rules as they evolve over time. Using the data produced by KaSim, an open source stochastic simulator of rule-based models written in the Kappa language, DINs provide a node-link diagram that represents the influence that each rule has on the other rules. That is, rather than representing individual biological components or types, we instead represent the rules about them (as nodes) and the current influence of these rules (as links). Using our interactive DIN-Viz software tool, researchers are able to query this dynamic network to find meaningful patterns about biological processes, and to identify salient aspects of complex rule-based models. To evaluate the effectiveness of our approach, we investigate a simulation of a circadian clock model that illustrates the oscillatory behavior of the KaiC protein phosphorylation cycle.
A modeling framework called aims to make it easier to build mathematical models of biochemical systems as Python programs @cite_12 . In their approach, models are not only created using programs, these models are already executable programs. transforms the Python code into either or rules, and provides methods that make it easier to create macros that encode recurrent biochemical patterns and to define complex networks as reusable modules. Pedersen et al. @cite_47 also introduce a modular extension to that provides a means for writing modular rule-based models.
@cite_47 @cite_12
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Mathematical equations are fundamental to modeling biological networks, but as networks get large and revisions frequent, it becomes difficult to manage equations directly or to combine previously developed models. Multiple simultaneous efforts to create graphical standards, rulebased languages, and integrated software workbenches aim to simplify biological modeling but none fully meets the need for transparent, extensible, and reusable models. In this paper we describe PySB, an approach in which models are not only created using programs, they are programs. PySB draws on programmatic modeling concepts from little b and ProMot, the rule-based languages BioNetGen and Kappa and the growing library of Python numerical tools. Central to PySB is a library of macros encoding familiar biochemical actions such as binding, catalysis, and polymerization, making it possible to use a high-level, action-oriented vocabulary to construct detailed models. As Python programs, PySB models leverage tools and practices from the opensource software community, substantially advancing our ability to distribute and manage the work of testing biochemical hypotheses. We illustrate these ideas using new and previously published models of apoptosis. Motivation: Simulation and modeling is becoming a standard approach to understand complex biochemical processes. Therefore, there is a big need for software tools that allow access to diverse simulation and modeling methods as well as support for the usage of these methods. Results: Here, we present COPASI, a platform-independent and user-friendly biochemical simulator that offers several unique features. We discuss numerical issues with these features; in particular, the criteria to switch between stochastic and deterministic simulation methods, hybrid deterministic--stochastic methods, and the importance of random number generator numerical resolution in stochastic simulation. Availability: The complete software is available in binary (executable) for MS Windows, OS X, Linux (Intel) and Sun Solaris (SPARC), as well as the full source code under an open source license from http: www.copasi.org. Contact: mendes@vbi.vt.edu Recent work on molecular programming has explored new possibilities for computational abstractions with biomolecules, including logic gates, neural networks, and linear systems. In the future such abstractions might enable nanoscale devices that can sense and control the world at a molecular scale. Just as in macroscale robotics, it is critical that such devices can learn about their environment and reason under uncertainty. At this small scale, systems are typically modeled as chemical reaction networks. In this work, we develop a procedure that can take arbitrary probabilistic graphical models, represented as factor graphs over discrete random variables, and compile them into chemical reaction networks that implement inference. In particular, we show that marginalization based on sum-product message passing can be implemented in terms of reactions between chemical species whose concentrations represent probabilities. We show algebraically that the steady state concentration of these species correspond to the marginal distributions of the random variables in the graph and validate the results in simulations. As with standard sum-product inference, this procedure yields exact results for tree-structured graphs, and approximate solutions for loopy graphs. The stochastic dynamics of biochemical networks are usually modelled with the chemical master equation (CME). The stationary distributions of CMEs are seldom solvable analytically, and numerical methods typically produce estimates with uncontrolled errors. Here, we introduce mathematical programming approaches that yield approximations of these distributions with computable error bounds which enable the verification of their accuracy. First, we use semidefinite programming to compute increasingly tighter upper and lower bounds on the moments of the stationary distributions for networks with rational propensities. Second, we use these moment bounds to formulate linear programs that yield convergent upper and lower bounds on the stationary distributions themselves, their marginals and stationary averages. The bounds obtained also provide a computational test for the uniqueness of the distribution. In the unique case, the bounds form an approximation of the stationary distribution with a computable bound on its error. In the non-unique case, our approach yields converging approximations of the ergodic distributions. We illustrate our methodology through several biochemical examples taken from the literature: Schl "ogl's model for a chemical bifurcation, a two-dimensional toggle switch, a model for bursty gene expression, and a dimerisation model with multiple stationary distributions.