Biological robustness

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Abstract

Robustness is a ubiquitously observed property of biological systems. It is considered to be a fundamental feature of complex evolvable systems. It is attained by several underlying principles that are universal to both biological organisms and sophisticated engineering systems. Robustness facilitates evolvability and robust traits are often selected by evolution. Such a mutually beneficial process is made possible by specific architectural features observed in robust systems. But there are trade-offs between robustness, fragility, performance and resource demands, which explain system behaviour, including the patterns of failure. Insights into inherent properties of robust systems will provide us with a better understanding of complex diseases and a guiding principle for therapy design.

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Gene Ontology: tool for the unification of biology

Michael Ashburner, Catherine A. Ball, Judith Blake … (2002)

Genomic sequencing has made it clear that a large fraction of the genes specifying the core biological functions are shared by all eukaryotes. Knowledge of the biological role of such shared proteins in one organism can often be transferred to other organisms. The goal of the Gene Ontology Consortium is to produce a dynamic, controlled vocabulary that can be applied to all eukaryotes even as knowledge of gene and protein roles in cells is accumulating and changing. To this end, three independent ontologies accessible on the World-Wide Web (http://www.geneontology.org) are being constructed: biological process, molecular function and cellular component.

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A gene complex controlling segmentation in Drosophila.

E B Lewis (1978)

The bithorax gene complex in Drosophila contains a minimum of eight genes that seem to code for substances controlling levels of thoracic and abdominal development. The state of repression of at least four of these genes is controlled by cis-regulatory elements and a separate locus (Polycomb) seems to code for a repressor of the complex. The wild-type and mutant segmentation patterns are consistent with an antero-posterior gradient in repressor concentration along the embryo and a proximo-distal gradient along the chromosome in the affinities for repressor of each gene's cis-regulatory element.