A multiscale approach to modelling planar cell polarity in Drosophila wing using hierarchically coloured Petri nets

  • Authors:

  • Qian Gao;Fei Liu;David Gilbert;Monika Heiner;David Tree

  • Affiliations:

  • Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK;Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, Germany;Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK;Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK;Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computational Methods in Systems Biology
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Modelling across multiple scales is a current challenge in Systems Biology, especially when applied to multicellular organisms. In this paper we present an approach to model at different spatial scales, using the new concept of hierarchically coloured Petri Nets (HCPN). We apply HCPN to model a tissue comprising multiple cells hexagonally packed in a honeycomb formation in order to describe the phenomenon of Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) signalling in Drosophila wing. We illustrate different levels of abstraction that can be used in order to assist the systematic modelling of such a complex system involving intra- and inter-cellular signalling mechanisms, and we provide a design pattern for similar modelling problems. Our initial model describes normal, wild-type PCP signalling, and we illustrate the power of our approach by easily adapting it to various tissue sizes and to describe the phenotype of a well-documented genetic mutation in Drosophila. We have performed a series of analyses on our models which require computational experiments over very large underlying models. All results are reproducible.