MMB & DFT 2012 Workshop Proceedings

Robustness Analysis for Biological Systems - fromQualitative to Quantitative ModelsFrank AllgöwerUniversity of Stuttgart, GermanyFor most biological systems only models with large structural and parametricuncertainties are available. While for some signal transduction pathways roughestimates for kinetic parameters can be determined, for most gene regulationnetworks not even the interaction structure is fully understood. This complicatesthe already dicult problem of analyzing and predicting the often complexdynamical behavior of these systems and shows that there is a need fornew analysis methods accounting for the respective degree of uncertainty. Inthis talk, we present two methods which allow to study the dynamical robustnessproperties of an uncertain system. The rst method is capable of assessingthe ability of a gene regulation network to generate a desired multistable behaviorin a maximally robust way. For this analysis, merely qualitative knowledgeof the interaction structure is required. The second method was developed tostudy the existence of oscillations and bistability of systems with large parametricuncertainties. Therefore, variations in feedback circuit gains are studied.Both methods can be used to gain insight into highly uncertain systems usingdierent levels of information.This is a joint work with Steen Waldherr, Christian Breindl and DaniellaSchittler.39