Medical Systems Biology

Abstract

The aim of this volume is to encourage the use of systems-level methodologies to contribute to the improvement of human-health . We intend to motivate biomedical researchers to complement their current theoretical and empirical practice with up-to-date systems biology conceptual approaches. Our perspective is based on the deep understanding of the key biomolecular regulatory mechanisms that underlie health, as well as the emergence and progression of human-disease . We strongly believe that the contemporary systems biology perspective opens the door to the effective development of novel methodologies to the improvement of prevention . This requires a deeper and integrative understanding of the involved underlying systems-level mechanisms. In order to explain our proposal in a simple way, in this chapter we privilege the conceptual exposition of our chosen framework over formal considerations. The formal exposition of our proposal will be expanded and discussed later in the next chapters.

Cyclic Attractors Are Critical for Macrophage Differentiation, Heterogeneity, and Plasticity

“…These oscillatory circuits could be further finely tuned by other mechanisms like the induction of signaling pathways, transcriptional regulation or stochastic effects like variations in local cytokine concentration, noise in signaling pathways, transcription factors binding, etc. Cyclic attractors are usually ignored when studying Boolean dynamics in hematopoiesis ( Alvarez-Buylla Roces et al, 2018 ), but the relevance of the oscillatory dynamics in vivo and in this network ( Wang et al, 2013 ; Munoz-Rojas et al, 2021 ) indicates that more methods should be developed to study cyclic attractors and determine when and how they have a functional role.…”