Modeling Biological Pathways: A discrete Event Systems Approach

Abstract

A discrete-event systems approach is proposed for the modeling of biochemical reaction systems. The approach is based on Petri nets, which are particularly suited to modeling stoichiometric transformations, i.e., the inter conversion of metabolites in fixed proportions. Properties of Petri nets and methods for their analysis are presented, along with their interpretation for biological systems. An example of the human erythrocyte metabolism is presented to illustrate the concepts of the methodology.