ESF programme on ‘Integrated Approaches for Functional Genomics’ workshop on ‘Modelling of Molecular Networks’

Introduction

The rapid pace of genome sequencing and new high-throughput methods are offering an unprecedented opportunity for investigating how individual genes and gene products cooperate to build up complex cellular structures and perform elaborate processes that enable cells and organisms to live and reproduce. The diagrams of cell regulatory networks that are being produced look increasingly complex, and it becomes impossible to use mere intuition to make predictions about their behaviour. Thus, the need for new integrative approaches is becoming paramount. These approaches range from systematic integration of large amounts of data, to efficient querying tools, to rigorous statistical analyses, and dynamic modelling. Such characterization of whole biological processes is becoming known as ‘systems biology’, and it will have a predictable impact on our knowledge of biological systems.

At the ESF sponsored workshop ‘Modelling of Molecular Networks’, we had the opportunity to examine: (a) the quality and origin of available experimental data on the structure and assembly of molecular networks; (b) methodologies for the study of the structure and dynamics of these networks; and (c) ideas for extracting information on the organization and regulation of cellular systems, and for the identification of groups of genes/proteins that play a key role in the networks. Accordingly, the workshop was organized into three sessions: ‘Combining theoretical and experimental approaches for the description of the components and relations in molecular networks’; ‘Structures of molecular networks and computational methods for their simulation’; and ‘Assembling the puzzle’.

Presentations

In the first session, Vincent Schachter (Hybrigenics, France) reviewed the status of approaches based on the two-hybrid technique for the construction of interaction networks, as well as computational approaches for extending this information to related organisms, including an insightful discussion of how to use network information to provide functional annotations. Ann-Claude Gavin (Cellzome, Germany) reported on the technical details of their systematic analysis of protein complexes purified by TAP (tandem affinity purification) tagging of yeast genes, followed by identification of the protein components of the complexes by MALDI–TOF mass spectrometry. The first reported data include the identification of approximately 260 complexes, corresponding to 2700 proteins. A new release of complexes, for almost the complete set of yeast proteins, is planned for this year. Shoshana Wodak (SCMBB, Brussels) presented aMAZE, a database for managing data on networks of cellular processes (metabolic regulation, signal transduction and transport pathways). She described the conceptual framework of the database, and outlined how analyses of functional networks could be integrated with comparative genome studies to improve the assignment of gene function, e.g. using gene expression data. Alessandro Guffanti (FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, Italy) described his vision of how biologists would approach the problem of mining sequence data in the context of the analysis of large data sets, while Raik Grunberg (Institut Pasteur, France) talked about approaches for the management of complex data in the framework of the semantic-web initiative. Duncan Davidson (Western General Hospital, UK) described the ‘Edinburgh Mouse Atlas project’, a database and visualization system for the analysis of the morphology of mouse embryos. Particularly interesting was the description of the possibilities for including information on the distribution of gene products in space and time. Marta Cascante (University of Barcelona, Spain) illustrated how the integration of data in computer models of metabolic profiling can give clues to identify differences between normal and tumour cells which can be exploited in cancer therapy. Using this strategy, she showed that the ribose-5-phosphate synthetic pathways could constitute a new target in the treatment of cancer, demonstrating how a systems approach can be used to identify drug targets.

In the session on ‘Networks and computer simulation’, Jan Komorowski (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway) introduced a methodology for inducing predictive rule models for functional classification using gene expression data from microarray hybridization experiments and gene ontology. Alvis Brazma [The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI–EMBL), UK] presented results on the derivation of gene control networks from the results of gene expression profiling of yeast single gene knockouts. The derived network, which can be described as a scale-free network, has interesting properties. In particular he described how nodes with a high outdegree of connectivity were commonly transcription factors, whereas those with high indegrees were mainly involved in metabolism. Joaquín Dopazo (Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas, Spain) discussed the possibility of inferring positive and negative transcriptional regulation from gene expression data, using the SOTA clustering algorithm, a hierarchical unsupervised growing neural network for analysing gene expression patterns. Hinnerk Boriss (Aarhus University, Denmark) referred to the development of tools for the design of complex networks. Christos Ouzounis (EBI–EMBL, UK) reviewed his group's extensive application of gene fusions to the prediction of protein interactions, and the recent application of their clustering techniques (‘tribe’) to the analysis of protein interaction networks. Alfonso Valencia (CNB–CSIC, Spain) offered an integrative point of view of molecular networks, including some aspects of information extraction techniques, including the application to Escherichia coli of the ‘in silico two-hybrid’ and ‘mirror-tree’ systems for the prediction of protein interaction partners using information from the corresponding protein sequence families, and the extraction of information from the literature with the ‘Suiseki’ system.

Finally, in the last workshop session, entitled ‘Assembling the puzzle’, Victor de Lorenzo (Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia, Spain) introduced the possibilities for applying bioinformatics approaches to the study of biodegradation, developing systems for automatic extraction of biological information or handling the information on metabolism of toxic compounds in diverse strains and ecosystems, and making clusters of knowledge and predictions of novel compounds degradation. Sophia Tsoka (EBI–EMBL, UK) described her analyses of metabolic enzymes and pathways, including a study of the functional versatility and molecular diversity of the metabolic map of E. coli. Vitor Martins Dos Santos (German Centre for Biotechnology, Germany) showed his initial results on the comparison of the genotype–phenotype relations between two Pseudomonas species. Tomasz Zemojtel (Biozentrum, Germany) provided interesting technical details on their set of tools for modelling enzyme regulation and networks. Yves Moreau (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium) presented a Bayesian framework of the analysis and modelling of regulatory networks. Luis Serrano (EMBL, Germany) commented on the design and construction of ‘Smartcell’, a framework for whole-cell simulation based on simple gene circuits, consisting of a regulator and transcriptional repressor modules. He described the role that negative feedback loops play in gene circuit stability, and detailed their theoretical and experimental approaches toward the modelling of autoregulatory systems. Hans V. Westerhoff (Vrije Universiteit and BioCentrum Amsterdam, The Netherlands) described the ‘Silicon Cell’ project as a system that integrates information at the physical-chemical and biochemical levels for well-characterized metabolic pathways, e.g. for glycolysis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or for the ‘glycosome’, an organelle unique to Trypanosoma brucei and related parasites. He showed how, for these restricted domains of living cells, the available kinetic data can be integrated into in silico models with the capacity for performing complex simulations of metabolic pathways and their dynamic behaviour.

Conclusions

Perhaps the most interesting conclusion of the meeting was the confirmation that a true interdisciplinary spirit exists around the idea of systems biology, that communication between different fields (experimental approaches, high-throughput techniques, bioinformatics, computational biology, mathematical modelling and others) is possible and naturally occurs when the right scientific focus is offered. The hype created around this area offers a unique opportunity to create a competitive European research programme, an opportunity that will require us to overcome the reluctance of the more traditional areas of molecular biology.