Related papers: The oral tolerance as a complex network phenomenon

A dynamic logic method was developed to analyze molecular networks of cells by combining Kauffman and Thomas's logic operations with molecular interaction parameters. The logic operations characterize the discrete interactions between…

We consider self-tolerance and its failure -autoimmunity- in a minimal mathematical model of the idiotypic network. A node in the network represents a clone of B-lymphocytes and its antibodies of the same idiotype which is encoded by a…

The lac operon in Escherichia coli has been studied extensively and is one of the earliest gene systems found to undergo both positive and negative control. The lac operon is known to exhibit bistability, in the sense that the operon is…

The metabolic networks are very well characterized for a large set of organisms, a unique case in within the large-scale biological networks. For this reason they provide a a very interesting framework for the construction of analytically…

Among various possible causes of autoimmune disease, an important role is played by infections that can result in a breakdown of immune tolerance, primarily through the mechanism of "molecular mimicry". In this paper we propose and analyse…

A major contribution to the onset and development of autoimmune disease is known to come from infections. An important practical problem is identifying the precise mechanism by which the breakdown of immune tolerance as a result of immune…

One of the characteristic features of genetic networks is their inherent robustness, that is, their ability to retain functionality in spite of the introduction of random errors. In this paper, we seek to better understand how robustness is…

Word-of-Mouth refers to the dynamics of interpersonal communication occurring during the diffusion of innovations (novel practices, ideas or products). According to field studies, word-of-mouth is made of both information seeking and…

During the last decade, network approaches became a powerful tool to describe protein structure and dynamics. Here, we describe first the protein structure networks of molecular chaperones, then characterize chaperone containing…

Recently, some studies started to unveil the wealthy of interactions that occur between groups of nodes when looking at the small scale of interactions taking place in complex networks. Such findings claim for a new systematic methodology…

The next step in the understanding of the genome organization, after the determination of complete sequences, involves proteomics. The proteome includes the whole set of protein-protein interactions, and two recent independent studies have…

The networks of predator-prey interactions in ecological systems are remarkably complex, but nevertheless surprisingly stable in terms of long term persistence of the system as a whole. In order to understand the mechanism driving the…

Random boolean networks are a model of genetic regulatory networks that has proven able to describe experimental data in biology. They not only reproduce important phenomena in cell dynamics, but they are also extremely interesting from a…

Biological systems encode function not primarily in steady states, but in the structure of transient responses elicited by time-varying stimuli. Overshoots, biphasic dynamics, adaptation kinetics, fold-change detection, entrainment, and…

Natural, social, and artificial multi-agent systems usually operate in dynamic environments, where the ability to respond to changing circumstances is a crucial feature. An effective collective response requires suitable information…

We propose a mathematical kinetic framework to investigate interactions between tumor cells and the immune system, focusing on the spatial dynamics of tumor progression and immune responses. We develop two kinetic models: one describes a…

An important feature of many complex systems, both natural and artificial, is the structure and organization of their interaction networks with interesting properties. Here we present a theory of self-organization by evolutionary adaptation…

Ecological and evolutionary dynamics have been historically regarded as unfolding at broadly separated timescales. However, these two types of processes are nowadays well documented to much more tightly than traditionally assumed,…

The long-term resilient property of ecosystems has been quantified as ecological robustness (RECO) in terms of the energy transfer over food webs. The RECO of resilient ecosystems favors a balance of food webs' network efficiency and…

Tumor-immune interactions are shaped by both antigenic heterogeneity and stochastic perturbations in the tumor microenvironment, yet the mathematical mechanisms underlying immune phase transitions remain poorly understood. We propose a…