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Metabolic stability and epigenesis in randomly connected nets (1969)
| Venue: | Journal of Theoretical Biology |
| Citations: | 655 - 5 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Kauffman69metabolicstability,
author = {S. A. Kauffman},
title = {Metabolic stability and epigenesis in randomly connected nets},
journal = {Journal of Theoretical Biology},
year = {1969},
pages = {437--467}
}
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Abstract
“The world is either the effect of cause or chance. If the latter, it is a world for all that, that is to say, it is a regular and beautiful structure.” Marcus Aurelius Proto-organisms probably were randomly aggregated nets of chemical reactions. The hypothesis that contemporary organisms are also randomly constructed molecular automata is examined by modeling the gene as a binary (on-off) device and studying the behavior of large, randomly con-structed nets of these binary “genes”. The results suggest that, if each “gene ” is directly affected by two or three other “genes”, then such random nets: behave with great order and stability; undergo behavior cycles whose length predicts cell replication time as a function of the number of genes per cell; possess different modes of behavior whose number per net predicts roughly the number of cell types in an organism as a function of its number of genes; and under the stimulus of noise are capable of differentiating directly from any mode of behavior to at most a few other modes of behavior. Cellular differentation is modeled as a Markov chain among the modes of behavior of a genetic net. The possibility of a general theory of metabolic behavior is suggested. 1.
Keyphrases
metabolic stability great order random net molecular automaton con-structed net general theory cell replication time net predicts undergo behavior cycle genetic net chemical reaction different mode contemporary organism marcus aurelius proto-organisms binary gene cellular differentation metabolic behavior markov chain cell type beautiful structure
