Powerful systems biology

Using new methods, ETH-Zurich researchers have come another step closer towards solving the metabolic puzzle. Credit: Hanne Jarmer, DTU

An international team of researchers headed by ETH-Zurich scientists has demonstrated for the first time how to extract testable hypotheses from a vast amount of different measurement data for cells that are about to change. The computer methods developed by the researchers help decode extremely complex biological control mechanisms.

The methods of modern biology have made such leaps in recent years that it is easy to amass vast quantities of measurement data nowadays. Not only have we long been able to decode the genetic material of a living organism; at the same time, we can also determine which genes are activated how strongly in which cells, which cellular regulating molecules are present, which proteins are produced and which metabolic products are present in which concentrations. Far more difficult than collecting the data, however, is analysing it, generating new knowledge from it or proposing new scientific hypotheses. “On the one hand, we are practically drowning in the flood of data in biologynowadays; on the other hand, we often lack key data,” says Uwe Sauer, a professor at the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology.

According to Sauer, new computer methods can help analyse huge amounts of data. Together with Jörg Stelling, a professor at the Department of Biosystems, and an international team of researchers, he has now demonstrated the possibilities computer-aided biology can offer on the bacterium Bacillus subtilis.

Largest dataset

The researchers began by compiling an extensive collection of hundreds of thousands of specific biological values for the bacterium. What is exceptional about this data pool is that it does not reflect the state of the bacteria at a particular time, but rather a measuring sequence of anadaptation of the micro-organisms to environmental changes over several hours.

The scientists allowed the bacteria to grow on glucose in the lab first before supplementing it with malic acid, which the micro-organisms can use as an alternative nutrient. They then repeated the experiment the other way round. They took all the measurements of the biological parameters available to them at short time intervals, thus generating the largest dataset there currently is for such transitions.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-03-powerful-biology.html#jCp

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