Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37015937›Full record

ArticleNPJ systems biology and applications2023

The nonlinearity of regulation in biological networks.

Santosh Manicka, Kathleen Johnson, Michael Levin, David Murrugarra

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in NPJ systems biology and applications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
18citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
  3. Review
  4. Article
  5. Review
  6. BioLogical: a universal analysis framework for biosystem logical dynamics.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2026
    Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. Control of Cellular Differentiation Trajectories for Cancer Reversion.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025
    Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Network medicinesJournal of translational medicine · 2023
    Article
  17. Review
  18. Organoids as complex (bio)systems.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2023
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Santosh Manicka *Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, 02155, USA.
Kathleen Johnson *Department of Mathematics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40506, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-0432-0362
Michael LevinDepartment of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA, 02155, USA.
David MurrugarraDepartment of Mathematics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40506, USA. murrugarra@uky.edu.ORCID 0000-0001-9710-5025

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The extent to which the components of a biological system are (non)linearly regulated determines how amenable they are to therapy and control. To better understand this property termed "regulatory nonlinearity", we analyzed a suite of 137 published Boolean network models, containing a variety of complex nonlinear regulatory interactions, using a probabilistic generalization of Boolean logic that George Boole himself had proposed. Leveraging the continuous-nature of this formulation, we used Taylor decomposition to approximate the models with various levels of regulatory nonlinearity. A comparison of the resulting series of approximations of the biological models with appropriate random ensembles revealed that biological regulation tends to be less nonlinear than expected, meaning that higher-order interactions among the regulatory inputs tend to be less pronounced. A further categorical analysis of the biological models revealed that the regulatory nonlinearity of cancer and disease networks could not only be sometimes higher than expected but also be relatively more variable. We show that this variation is caused by differences in the apportioning of information among the various orders of regulatory nonlinearity. Our results suggest that there may have been a weak but discernible selection pressure for biological systems to evolve linear regulation on average, but for certain systems such as cancer, on the other hand, to simultaneously evolve more nonlinear rules.

Indexed as

Models, BiologicalNonlinear Dynamics

Identifiers

PMID37015937
PMCPMC10073134

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.