A Nonmonotonic Logical Approach for Modelling and Revising Metabolic Networks

—This paper describes a new logic-based approach for representing and reasoning about metabolic networks. First it shows how biological pathways can be elegantly represented in a logic programming formalism able to model full chemical reactions with substrates and products in different cell compartments, and which are catalysed by iso-enzymes or enzymecomplexes that are subject to inhibitory feedbacks. Then it shows how a nonmonotonic reasoning system called XHAIL can be used as a practical method for learning and revising such metabolic networks from observational data. Preliminary results are described in which the approach is validated on a state-ofthe-art model of Aromatic Amino Acid biosynthesis.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: CISIS
• Authors: Oliver Ray, Ken E. Whelan, Ross D. King
• Keywords: Amino Acid Biosynthesis, CISIS 2009, Logic Programming Formalism, Metabolic Networks, Software Engineering