Distributed Robustness In Cellular Networks: Insights From Synthetic Evolved Circuits

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 17 Sep 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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The origins of robustness in biological networks is one of the most important issues in evolutionary biology.

How a cell keeps working when some of its molecular elements fail? It has been suggested that such robustness does not arise from redundancy (as it would happen with an engineered system) but instead from a different type of phenomenon, so called "degeneracy" or "distributed robustness".

Here we show that this mechanism is indeed at work by using a population of evolved digital circuits.

Journal of the Royal Society Interface

Journal of the Royal Society Interface is the Society's cross-disciplinary publication promoting research at the interface between the physical and life sciences. It offers rapidity, visibility and high-quality peer review and is ranked fifth in JCR's multidisciplinary category. The journal also incorporates Interface Focus, a peer-reviewed, themed supplement, each issue of which concentrates on a specific cross-disciplinary subject

Journal of the Royal Society Interface