Robustness and modular design of the Drosophila segment polarity network

Details Robustness and modular design of the Drosophila segment polarity network Robustness and modular design of the Drosophila segment polarity network

2006-10-17

arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0610028v2

Molecular Systems Biology 2:70 (2006).

Biology

Quantitative Biology

Molecular Networks

Supplementary Information and Synopsis available at http://www.ucsf.edu/tanglab/

Scientific paper

Biomolecular networks have to perform their functions robustly. A robust function may have preferences in the topological structures of the underlying network. We carried out an exhaustive computational analysis on network topologies in relation to a patterning function in Drosophila embryogenesis. We found that while the vast majority of topologies can either not perform the required function or only do so very fragilely, a small fraction of topologies emerges as particularly robust for the function. The topology adopted by Drosophila, that of the segment polarity network, is a top ranking one among all topologies with no direct autoregulation. Furthermore, we found that all robust topologies are modular--each being a combination of three kinds of modules. These modules can be traced back to three sub-functions of the patterning function and their combinations provide a combinatorial variability for the robust topologies. Our results suggest that the requirement of functional robustness drastically reduces the choices of viable topology to a limited set of modular combinations among which nature optimizes its choice under evolutionary and other biological constraints.

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