553 research outputs found
Hybrid stochastic simplifications for multiscale gene networks
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Stochastic simulation of gene networks by Markov processes has important applications in molecular biology. The complexity of exact simulation algorithms scales with the number of discrete jumps to be performed. Approximate schemes reduce the computational time by reducing the number of simulated discrete events. Also, answering important questions about the relation between network topology and intrinsic noise generation and propagation should be based on general mathematical results. These general results are difficult to obtain for exact models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We propose a unified framework for hybrid simplifications of Markov models of multiscale stochastic gene networks dynamics. We discuss several possible hybrid simplifications, and provide algorithms to obtain them from pure jump processes. In hybrid simplifications, some components are discrete and evolve by jumps, while other components are continuous. Hybrid simplifications are obtained by partial Kramers-Moyal expansion <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr><abbr bid="B2">2</abbr><abbr bid="B3">3</abbr></abbrgrp> which is equivalent to the application of the central limit theorem to a sub-model. By averaging and variable aggregation we drastically reduce simulation time and eliminate non-critical reactions. Hybrid and averaged simplifications can be used for more effective simulation algorithms and for obtaining general design principles relating noise to topology and time scales. The simplified models reproduce with good accuracy the stochastic properties of the gene networks, including waiting times in intermittence phenomena, fluctuation amplitudes and stationary distributions. The methods are illustrated on several gene network examples.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Hybrid simplifications can be used for onion-like (multi-layered) approaches to multi-scale biochemical systems, in which various descriptions are used at various scales. Sets of discrete and continuous variables are treated with different methods and are coupled together in a physically justified approach.</p
Reduction of dynamical biochemical reaction networks in computational biology
Biochemical networks are used in computational biology, to model the static
and dynamical details of systems involved in cell signaling, metabolism, and
regulation of gene expression. Parametric and structural uncertainty, as well
as combinatorial explosion are strong obstacles against analyzing the dynamics
of large models of this type. Multi-scaleness is another property of these
networks, that can be used to get past some of these obstacles. Networks with
many well separated time scales, can be reduced to simpler networks, in a way
that depends only on the orders of magnitude and not on the exact values of the
kinetic parameters. The main idea used for such robust simplifications of
networks is the concept of dominance among model elements, allowing
hierarchical organization of these elements according to their effects on the
network dynamics. This concept finds a natural formulation in tropical
geometry. We revisit, in the light of these new ideas, the main approaches to
model reduction of reaction networks, such as quasi-steady state and
quasi-equilibrium approximations, and provide practical recipes for model
reduction of linear and nonlinear networks. We also discuss the application of
model reduction to backward pruning machine learning techniques
Switching and diffusion models for gene regulation networks
We analyze a hierarchy of three regimes for modeling gene regulation. The most complete model is a continuous time, discrete state space, Markov jump process. An intermediate 'switch plus diffusion' model takes the form of a stochastic differential equation driven by an independent continuous time Markov switch. In the third 'switch plus ODE' model the switch remains but the diffusion is removed. The latter two models allow for multi-scale simulation where, for the sake of computational efficiency, system components are treated differently according to their abundance. The 'switch plus ODE' regime was proposed by Paszek (Modeling stochasticity in gene regulation: characterization in the terms of the underlying distribution function, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 2007), who analyzed the steady state behavior, showing that the mean was preserved but the variance only approximated that of the full model. Here, we show that the tools of stochastic calculus can be used to analyze first and second moments for all time. A technical issue to be addressed is that the state space for the discrete-valued switch is infinite. We show that the new 'switch plus diffusion' regime preserves the biologically relevant measures of mean and variance, whereas the 'switch plus ODE' model uniformly underestimates the variance in the protein level. We also show that, for biologically relevant parameters, the transient behaviour can differ significantly from the steady state, justifying our time-dependent analysis. Extra computational results are also given for a protein dimerization model that is beyond the scope of the current analysis
Jump-Diffusion Approximation of Stochastic Reaction Dynamics: Error bounds and Algorithms
Biochemical reactions can happen on different time scales and also the
abundance of species in these reactions can be very different from each other.
Classical approaches, such as deterministic or stochastic approach, fail to
account for or to exploit this multi-scale nature, respectively. In this paper,
we propose a jump-diffusion approximation for multi-scale Markov jump processes
that couples the two modeling approaches. An error bound of the proposed
approximation is derived and used to partition the reactions into fast and slow
sets, where the fast set is simulated by a stochastic differential equation and
the slow set is modeled by a discrete chain. The error bound leads to a very
efficient dynamic partitioning algorithm which has been implemented for several
multi-scale reaction systems. The gain in computational efficiency is
illustrated by a realistically sized model of a signal transduction cascade
coupled to a gene expression dynamics.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figure
Tropical geometries and dynamics of biochemical networks. Application to hybrid cell cycle models
We use the Litvinov-Maslov correspondence principle to reduce and hybridize
networks of biochemical reactions. We apply this method to a cell cycle
oscillator model. The reduced and hybridized model can be used as a hybrid
model for the cell cycle. We also propose a practical recipe for detecting
quasi-equilibrium QE reactions and quasi-steady state QSS species in
biochemical models with rational rate functions and use this recipe for model
reduction. Interestingly, the QE/QSS invariant manifold of the smooth model and
the reduced dynamics along this manifold can be put into correspondence to the
tropical variety of the hybridization and to sliding modes along this variety,
respectivelyComment: conference SASB 2011, to be published in Electronic Notes in
Theoretical Computer Scienc
Kinetic Path Summation, Multi--Sheeted Extension of Master Equation, and Evaluation of Ergodicity Coefficient
We study the Master equation with time--dependent coefficients, a linear
kinetic equation for the Markov chains or for the monomolecular chemical
kinetics. For the solution of this equation a path summation formula is proved.
This formula represents the solution as a sum of solutions for simple kinetic
schemes (kinetic paths), which are available in explicit analytical form. The
relaxation rate is studied and a family of estimates for the relaxation time
and the ergodicity coefficient is developed. To calculate the estimates we
introduce the multi--sheeted extensions of the initial kinetics. This approach
allows us to exploit the internal ("micro")structure of the extended kinetics
without perturbation of the base kinetics.Comment: The final journal versio
On the foundations of cancer modelling: selected topics, speculations, & perspectives
This paper presents a critical review of selected topics related to the modelling of cancer onset, evolution and growth, with the aim of illustrating, to a wide applied mathematical readership, some of the novel mathematical problems in the field. This review attempts to capture, from the appropriate literature, the main issues involved in the modelling of phenomena related to cancer dynamics at all scales which characterise this highly complex system: from the molecular scale up to that of tissue. The last part of the paper discusses the challenge of developing a mathematical biological theory of tumour onset and evolution
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