Pathway Regulatory Analysis and Modeling of Drug Intervention Effects in the Context of Bayesian Networks
April 4, 2011
3:30 p.m.
Ivan Ivanov
Abstract
To effectively intervene when cells are trapped in pathological modes of operation it is necessary to build models that capture sufficient detail of the network structure and how activities are changing to choose points of intervention where the pathological cell behaviors that arise from improper regulation can be stopped. What is known about this type of cellular decision-making is consistent with the general expectations associated with any kind of decision-making operation. If the result of a decision at one node is serially transmitted to other nodes, resetting their states, then the process may suffer from mechanistic inefficiencies of transmission or from blockage or activation of transmission through the action of other nodes acting on the same node. A standard signal-processing network model, Bayesian networks, can model these properties. Using this framework we can characterize important nodes in the pathway such as master and canalizing genes. The model is also used to examine what inferences about the network structure can be made when perturbations are applied to various points in the network. Thus, it can be applied to model the effects of a drug on portions of a cell regulatory pathway.