Standard virtual biological parts: a repository of modular modeling components for synthetic biology.
BACKGROUND
Fabrication of synthetic biological systems is greatly enhanced by incorporating engineering design principles and techniques such as computer-aided design. To this end, the ongoing standardization of biological parts presents an opportunity to develop libraries of standard virtual parts in the form of mathematical models that can be combined to inform system design.


RESULTS
We present an online Repository, populated with a collection of standardized models that can readily be recombined to model different biological systems using the inherent modularity support of the CellML 1.1 model exchange format. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated by modeling gold-medal winning iGEM machines.


METHODS
The Repository is available online as part of http://models.cellml.org. We hope to stimulate the worldwide community to reuse and extend the models therein, and contribute to the Repository of Standard Virtual Parts thus founded. Systems Model architecture information for the Systems Model described here, along with an additional example and a tutorial, is also available as Supplementary information. The example Systems Model from this manuscript can be found at http://models.cellml.org/workspace/bugbuster. The Template models used in the example can be found at http://models.cellml.org/workspace/SVP_Templates200906.
Auckland Bioengineering Institute, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. m.cooling@auckland.ac.nz
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Cooling
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Rouilly
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Misirli
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Lawson
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Yu
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Hallinan
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Wipat
D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D008954:Models, Biological; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism
D012333:RNA, Messenger