University of Exeter, College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Exeter, UK.
IET Syst Biol. 2011 Jul;5(4):229-44. doi: 10.1049/iet-syb.2010.0072.
Robustness, the ability of a system to function correctly in the presence of both internal and external uncertainty, has emerged as a key organising principle in many biological systems. Biological robustness has thus become a major focus of research in Systems Biology, particularly on the engineering-biology interface, since the concept of robustness was first rigorously defined in the context of engineering control systems. This review focuses on one particularly important aspect of robustness in Systems Biology, that is, the use of robustness analysis methods for the validation or invalidation of models of biological systems. With the explosive growth in quantitative modelling brought about by Systems Biology, the problem of validating, invalidating and discriminating between competing models of a biological system has become an increasingly important one. In this review, the authors provide a comprehensive overview of the tools and methods that are available for this task, and illustrate the wide range of biological systems to which this approach has been successfully applied.
稳健性，即系统在内部和外部不确定性存在的情况下正确运行的能力，已成为许多生物系统的关键组织原则。因此，自从稳健性的概念在工程控制系统的背景下首次被严格定义以来，它已成为系统生物学，特别是工程生物学界面研究的主要焦点。
本篇综述聚焦于系统生物学中稳健性的一个特别重要的方面，即使用稳健性分析方法来验证或否定生物系统模型。随着系统生物学带来的定量建模的爆炸式增长，验证、否定和区分生物系统的竞争模型的问题变得越来越重要。在这篇综述中，作者提供了一个全面的概述，介绍了可用于该任务的工具和方法，并说明了该方法已成功应用于的广泛的生物系统。
