Tieri Paolo, Grignolio Andrea, Zaikin Alexey, Mishto Michele, Remondini Daniel, Castellani Gastone C, Franceschi Claudio
Interdept, Center Luigi Galvani for Bioinformatics, Biophysics and Biocomplexity (CIG), University of Bologna, Via F, Selmi 3, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
Theor Biol Med Model. 2010 Aug 11;7:32. doi: 10.1186/1742-4682-7-32.
Recently, the network paradigm, an application of graph theory to biology, has proven to be a powerful approach to gaining insights into biological complexity, and has catalyzed the advancement of systems biology. In this perspective and focusing on the immune system, we propose here a more comprehensive view to go beyond the concept of network. We start from the concept of degeneracy, one of the most prominent characteristic of biological complexity, defined as the ability of structurally different elements to perform the same function, and we show that degeneracy is highly intertwined with another recently-proposed organizational principle, i.e. 'bow tie architecture'. The simultaneous consideration of concepts such as degeneracy, bow tie architecture and network results in a powerful new interpretative tool that takes into account the constructive role of noise (stochastic fluctuations) and is able to grasp the major characteristics of biological complexity, i.e. the capacity to turn an apparently chaotic and highly dynamic set of signals into functional information.
最近，网络范式作为图论在生物学中的应用，已被证明是深入了解生物复杂性的有力方法，并推动了系统生物学的发展。在此观点中，我们聚焦于免疫系统，提出一个超越网络概念的更全面视角。我们从简并性的概念出发，简并性是生物复杂性最显著的特征之一，定义为结构不同的元素执行相同功能的能力，并且我们表明简并性与另一个最近提出的组织原则，即“领结结构”高度交织。同时考虑简并性、领结结构和网络等概念，会产生一个强大的新解释工具，该工具考虑了噪声（随机波动）的建设性作用，并且能够把握生物复杂性的主要特征，即将一组看似混乱且高度动态的信号转化为功能信息的能力。
