Deterministic Structures of Biomolecular Networks

Abstract

One of the ultimate goals in molecular biology is to understand the physiology of living cells in terms of the information that is encoded in the genome of a cell. The central dogma of molecular biology, i.e., DNA encodes RNA which in turn produces protein molecules, provides a framework for understanding the flow of information transfer from the DNA through the RNA to the protein molecules. Individual molecules, such as proteins, perform various functions in complex molecular networks and play key roles in most of the cellular processes. For example, a protein may affect production rates of other proteins or itself by transcriptional regulation when acting as a transcriptional factor. Therefore, to understand how genes, proteins, and small molecules dynamically interact to form molecular networks which realize sophisticated biological functions becomes one of the major challenges for post-genomic biology.