Roenneberg Till, Chua Elaine Jane, Bernardo Ric, Mendoza Eduardo
Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Goethestrasse 31, D-80336 Munich, Germany.
Curr Biol. 2008 Sep 9;18(17):R826-R835. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.017.
With our growing awareness of the complexity underlying biological phenomena, our need for computational models becomes increasingly apparent. Due to their properties, biological clocks have always lent themselves to computational modelling. Their capacity to oscillate without dampening--even when deprived of all rhythmic environmental information--required the hypothesis of an endogenous oscillator. The notion of a 'clock' provided a conceptual model of this system well before the dynamics of circadian oscillators were probed by computational modelling. With growing insight into the molecular basis of circadian rhythmicity, computational models became more concrete and quantitative. Here, we review the history of modelling circadian oscillators and establish a taxonomy of the modelling world to put the large body of circadian modelling literature into context. Finally, we assess the predictive power of circadian modelling and its success in creating new hypotheses.
随着我们对生物现象背后复杂性的认识不断加深，我们对计算模型的需求日益明显。由于生物钟的特性，它们一直适合进行计算建模。即使在没有任何节律性环境信息的情况下，它们仍能持续振荡而不衰减，这就需要提出内源性振荡器的假设。早在通过计算建模探究昼夜节律振荡器的动力学之前，“时钟”的概念就为该系统提供了一个概念模型。随着对昼夜节律分子基础的深入了解，计算模型变得更加具体和定量。在这里，我们回顾了昼夜节律振荡器建模的历史，并建立了一个建模领域的分类法，以便将大量的昼夜节律建模文献置于背景之中。最后，我们评估了昼夜节律建模的预测能力及其在提出新假设方面的成功。
