title: Dynamical approaches to modeling developmental gene regulatory networks.
abstract: The network of interacting regulatory signals within a cell comprises one of the most complex and powerful computational systems in biology. Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) play a key role in transforming the information encoded in a genome into morphological form. To achieve this feat, GRNs must respond to and integrate environmental signals with their internal dynamics in a robust and coordinated fashion. The highly dynamic nature of this process lends itself to interpretation and analysis in the language of dynamical models. Modeling provides a means of systematically untangling the complicated structure of GRNs, a framework within which to simulate the behavior of reconstructed systems and, in some cases, suites of analytic tools for exploring that behavior and its implications. This review provides a general background to the idea of treating a regulatory network as a dynamical system, and describes a variety of different approaches that have been taken to the dynamical modeling of GRNs.
authors.affiliation: School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom. nlg@ecs.soton.ac.uk
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Geard
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Willadsen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003198:Computer Simulation; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals / Q000235:genetics*; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*