The influence of canalization on the robustness of Boolean networks

Authors

C Kadelka
J Kuipers
Reinhard Laubenbacher, The Jackson LaboratoryFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2017

JAX Source

Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 2017 Sep; 353-354:39-47

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physd.2017.05.002

Abstract

Time- and state-discrete dynamical systems are frequently used to model molecular networks. This paper provides a collection of mathematical and computational tools for the study of robustness in Boolean network models. The focus is on networks governed by k" role="presentation">-canalizing functions, a recently introduced class of Boolean functions that contains the well-studied class of nested canalizing functions. The variable activities and sensitivity of a function quantify the impact of input changes on the function output. This paper generalizes the latter concept to c" role="presentation">-sensitivity and provides formulas for the activities and c" role="presentation">-sensitivity of general k" role="presentation">-canalizing functions as well as canalizing functions with more precisely defined structure. A popular measure for the robustness of a network, the Derrida value, can be expressed as a weighted sum of the c" role="presentation">-sensitivities of the governing canalizing functions, and can also be calculated for a stochastic extension of Boolean networks. These findings provide a computationally efficient way to obtain Derrida values of Boolean networks, deterministic or stochastic, that does not involve

Recommended Citation

Kadelka C, Kuipers J, Laubenbacher R. The influence of canalization on the robustness of Boolean networks Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 2017 Sep; 353-354:39-47