Abstract
Asymptotic behaviors are often of particular interest when analyzing Boolean networks that represent biological systems such as signal transduction or gene regulatory networks. Methods based on a generalization of the steady state notion, the so-called trap spaces, can be exploited to investigate attractor properties as well as for model reduction techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel optimization-based method for computing all minimal and maximal trap spaces and motivate their use. In particular, we add a new result yielding a lower bound for the number of cyclic attractors and illustrate the methods with a study of a MAPK pathway model. To test the efficiency and scalability of the method, we compare the performance of the ILP solver gurobi with the ASP solver potassco in a benchmark of random networks.
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Acknowledgments
We thank S. Videla, M. Ostrowski and T. Schaub of University of Potsdam for their help with the ASP formulation.
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An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11047-016-9611-0.
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Klarner, H., Bockmayr, A. & Siebert, H. Computing maximal and minimal trap spaces of Boolean networks. Nat Comput 14, 535–544 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-015-9520-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-015-9520-7
Keywords
- Boolean networks
- Attractors
- Signal transduction
- Gene regulation
- Answer set programming
- Integer linear programming