Network simulation ; Expert system ; Production system
Abstract
Inferring novel findings from known biological knowledge is one of the ultimate goals in systems biology. However, the observation of system-level responses to a given perturbation has not been thoroughly explored due to the lack of proper large-scale inference models. We developed a novel expert system that can be applied to conventional biological networks based on the production rule system which works by transforming networks into a knowledgebase. Testing on large-scale multi-level biomedical networks confirmed the applicability of our system and revealed that hundreds of molecules are affected by the cascades of given signals, thereby activating or repressing key pathways in a cell.