title: Evolutionary optimization with data collocation for reverse engineering of biological networks.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Modern experimental biology is moving away from analyses of single elements to whole-organism measurements. Such measured time-course data contain a wealth of information about the structure and dynamic of the pathway or network. The dynamic modeling of the whole systems is formulated as a reverse problem that requires a well-suited mathematical model and a very efficient computational method to identify the model structure and parameters. Numerical integration for differential equations and finding global parameter values are still two major challenges in this field of the parameter estimation of nonlinear dynamic biological systems.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We compare three techniques of parameter estimation for nonlinear dynamic biological systems. In the proposed scheme, the modified collocation method is applied to convert the differential equations to the system of algebraic equations. The observed time-course data are then substituted into the algebraic system equations to decouple system interactions in order to obtain the approximate model profiles. Hybrid differential evolution (HDE) with population size of five is able to find a global solution. The method is not only suited for parameter estimation but also can be applied for structure identification. The solution obtained by HDE is then used as the starting point for a local search method to yield the refined estimates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-yi 621-02, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Kuan-Yao
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: Feng-Sheng
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016208:Databases, Factual; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors