Cellular Information Processing in the Face of Promiscuity and Sloppiness
Presenter
April 24, 2008
Keywords:
- Biology, networks
MSC:
- 92C42
Abstract
Cellular information processing is carried out by complex biomolecular networks
that are able to function reliably despite environmental noise and genetic mutations.
The robustness and evolvability of biological systems is supported in part by neutral
networks and neutral spaces that allow for the preservation of phenotype despite underlying
genotypic variation. This talk will describe two such spaces. The first are sequence niches
that emerge in the process of satisfying constraints needed to avoid crosstalk among sets
of promiscuous and paralogous proteins. The second are highly anistropic, sloppy parameter
spaces that arise in multiparameter models of biomolecular networks. Implications of
the structure of these spaces for cellular information processing will be discussed.