Nutritional systems biology modeling: from molecular mechanisms to physiology.
Review article, 2009

The use of computational modeling and simulation has increased in many biological fields, but despite their potential these techniques are only marginally applied in nutritional sciences. Nevertheless, recent applications of modeling have been instrumental in answering important nutritional questions from the cellular up to the physiological levels. Capturing the complexity of today's important nutritional research questions poses a challenge for modeling to become truly integrative in the consideration and interpretation of experimental data at widely differing scales of space and time. In this review, we discuss a selection of available modeling approaches and applications relevant for nutrition. We then put these models into perspective by categorizing them according to their space and time domain. Through this categorization process, we identified a dearth of models that consider processes occurring between the microscopic and macroscopic scale. We propose a "middle-out" strategy to develop the required full-scale, multilevel computational models. Exhaustive and accurate phenotyping, the use of the virtual patient concept, and the development of biomarkers from "-omics" signatures are identified as key elements of a successful systems biology modeling approach in nutrition research--one that integrates physiological mechanisms and data at multiple space and time scales.

physiology models

Systems biology

kinetics

Author

Albert A de Graaf

Andreas P Freidig

Baukje De Roos

Neema Jamshidi

Matthias Heinemann

Johan A C Rullmann

Kevin D Hall

Martin Adiels

University of Gothenburg

Ben van Ommen

PLoS Computational Biology

1553-734X (ISSN) 1553-7358 (eISSN)

Vol. 5 11 e1000554-

Subject Categories

Endocrinology and Diabetes

Computational Mathematics

Physiology

Nutrition and Dietetics

DOI

10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000554

PubMed

19956660

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Created

10/10/2017