A spectrum of modularity in multi-functional gene circuits.
A spectrum of modularity in multi-functional gene circuits.
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DOI：
10.15252/msb.20167347
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发表时间：
2017-04-27
影响因子：
9.9
通讯作者：
Sharpe J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jiménez A;Cotterell J;Munteanu A;Sharpe J
系统生物学的一个主要挑战是理解电路结构和功能之间的关系，但是如果电路必须在同一生物体中执行多种不同的功能，这种关系是如何受到影响的？特别是，多功能电路在多大程度上包含反映不同功能的模块？在这里，我们通过计算调查了一系列双功能电路，它们显示出没有简单的结构模块化：它们可以在两个性质不同的功能之间切换，而这两个功能都依赖于电路的所有基因。我们的分析揭示了两种不同的类型：混合电路，在其电路中覆盖两个更简单的单功能子电路，以及紧急电路，它们没有。在第二类中，双功能从更复杂的设计中出现，这些设计不能完全分解为不同的模块，因此无法直观地预测或理解。这些非直观的紧急电路与它们的混合电路一样健壮，因此我们认为，对研究模块化系统的普遍偏见可能会阻碍我们对真实生物电路的理解。
A major challenge in systems biology is to understand the relationship between a circuit's structure and its function, but how is this relationship affected if the circuit must perform multiple distinct functions within the same organism? In particular, to what extent do multi‐functional circuits contain modules which reflect the different functions? Here, we computationally survey a range of bi‐functional circuits which show no simple structural modularity: They can switch between two qualitatively distinct functions, while both functions depend on all genes of the circuit. Our analysis reveals two distinct classes: hybrid circuits which overlay two simpler mono‐functional sub‐circuits within their circuitry, and emergent circuits, which do not. In this second class, the bi‐functionality emerges from more complex designs which are not fully decomposable into distinct modules and are consequently less intuitive to predict or understand. These non‐intuitive emergent circuits are just as robust as their hybrid counterparts, and we therefore suggest that the common bias toward studying modular systems may hinder our understanding of real biological circuits.