Open Access Published by De Gruyter

Volume 15 Issue 1 - Special Issue: Standards in Systems Biology / Guest Editor: Falk Schreiber

March 2018

Issue of Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics

Contents
Journal Overview

Open Access March 29, 2018

Specifications of Standards in Systems and Synthetic Biology: Status and Developments in 2017

Falk Schreiber, Gary D. Bader, Padraig Gleeson, Martin Golebiewski, Michael Hucka, Sarah M. Keating, Nicolas Le Novère, Chris Myers, David Nickerson, Björn Sommer, Dagmar Waltemath

Article number: 20180013

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Abstract

Standards are essential to the advancement of Systems and Synthetic Biology. COMBINE provides a formal body and a centralised platform to help develop and disseminate relevant standards and related resources. The regular special issue of the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics aims to support the exchange, distribution and archiving of these standards by providing unified, easily citable access. This paper provides an overview of existing COMBINE standards and presents developments of the last year.

Open Access April 26, 2018

The Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML): Language Specification for Level 3 Version 1 Core

Michael Hucka, Frank T. Bergmann, Andreas Dräger, Stefan Hoops, Sarah M. Keating, Nicolas Le Novère, Chris J. Myers, Brett G. Olivier, Sven Sahle, James C. Schaff, Lucian P. Smith, Dagmar Waltemath, Darren J. Wilkinson

Article number: 20170080

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Abstract

Computational models can help researchers to interpret data, understand biological functions, and make quantitative predictions. The Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) is a file format for representing computational models in a declarative form that different software systems can exchange. SBML is oriented towards describing biological processes of the sort common in research on a number of topics, including metabolic pathways, cell signaling pathways, and many others. By supporting SBML as an input/output format, different tools can all operate on an identical representation of a model, removing opportunities for translation errors and assuring a common starting point for analyses and simulations. This document provides the specification for Release 2 of Version 1 of SBML Level 3 Core. The specification defines the data structures prescribed by SBML, their encoding in XML (the eXtensible Markup Language), validation rules that determine the validity of an SBML document, and examples of models in SBML form. No design changes have been made to the description of models between Release 1 and Release 2; changes are restricted to the format of annotations, the correction of errata and the addition of clarifications. Other materials and software are available from the SBML project website at http://sbml.org/.

Open Access March 9, 2018

The Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML): Language Specification for Level 3 Version 2 Core

Article number: 20170081

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Abstract

Computational models can help researchers to interpret data, understand biological functions, and make quantitative predictions. The Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) is a file format for representing computational models in a declarative form that different software systems can exchange. SBML is oriented towards describing biological processes of the sort common in research on a number of topics, including metabolic pathways, cell signaling pathways, and many others. By supporting SBML as an input/output format, different tools can all operate on an identical representation of a model, removing opportunities for translation errors and assuring a common starting point for analyses and simulations. This document provides the specification for Version 2 of SBML Level 3 Core. The specification defines the data structures prescribed by SBML, their encoding in XML (the eXtensible Markup Language), validation rules that determine the validity of an SBML document, and examples of models in SBML form. The design of Version 2 differs from Version 1 principally in allowing new MathML constructs, making more child elements optional, and adding identifiers to all SBML elements instead of only selected elements. Other materials and software are available from the SBML project website at http://sbml.org/.

Open Access April 20, 2018

SBML Level 3 package: Multistate, Multicomponent and Multicompartment Species, Version 1, Release 1

Fengkai Zhang, Martin Meier-Schellersheim

Article number: 20170077

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Abstract

Rule-based modeling is an approach that permits constructing reaction networks based on the specification of rules for molecular interactions and transformations. These rules can encompass details such as the interacting sub-molecular domains (components) and the states such as phosphorylation and binding status of the involved components. Fine-grained spatial information such as the locations of the molecular components relative to a membrane (e.g. whether a modeled molecular domain is embedded into the inner leaflet of the cellular plasma membrane) can also be provided. Through wildcards representing component states entire families of molecule complexes sharing certain properties can be specified as patterns. This can significantly simplify the definition of models involving species with multiple components, multiple states and multiple compartments. The SBML Level 3 Multi Package (Multistate, Multicomponent and Multicompartment Species Package for SBML Level 3) extends the SBML Level 3 core with the “type” concept in the Species and Compartment classes and therefore reaction rules may contain species that can be patterns and be in multiple locations in reaction rules. Multiple software tools such as Simmune and BioNetGen support the SBML Level 3 Multi package that thus also becomes a medium for exchanging rule-based models.

Open Access April 2, 2018

SBML Level 3 package: Render, Version 1, Release 1

Frank T. Bergmann, Sarah M. Keating, Ralph Gauges, Sven Sahle, Katja Wengler

Article number: 20170078

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Abstract

Many software tools provide facilities for depicting reaction network diagrams in a visual form. Two aspects of such a visual diagram can be distinguished: the layout (i.e.: the positioning and connections) of the elements in the diagram, and the graphical form of the elements (for example, the glyphs used for symbols, the properties of the lines connecting them, and so on). This document describes the SBML Level 3 Render package that complements the SBML Level 3 Layout package and provides a means of capturing the precise rendering of the elements in a diagram. The SBML Level 3 Render package provides a flexible approach to rendering that is independent of both the underlying SBML model and the Layout information. There can be one block of render information that applies to all layouts or an additional block for each layout. Many of the elements used in the current render specification are based on corresponding elements from the SVG specification. This allows us to easily convert a combination of layout information and render information into a SVG drawing.

Open Access March 9, 2018

SBML Level 3 Package: Flux Balance Constraints version 2

Brett G. Olivier, Frank T. Bergmann

Article number: 20170082

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Abstract

Constraint-based modeling is a well established modeling methodology used to analyze and study biological networks on both a medium and genome scale. Due to their large size and complexity such steady-state flux models are, typically, analyzed using constraint-based optimization techniques, for example, flux balance analysis (FBA). The Flux balance constraints (FBC) Package extends SBML Level 3 and provides a standardized format for the encoding, exchange and annotation of constraint-based models. It includes support for modeling concepts such as objective functions, flux bounds and model component annotation that facilitates reaction balancing. Version two expands on the original release by adding official support for encoding gene-protein associations and their associated elements. In addition to providing the elements necessary to unambiguously encode existing constraint-based models, the FBC Package provides an open platform facilitating the continued, cross-community development of an interoperable, constraint-based model encoding format.

Open Access April 2, 2018

Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) Version 2.2.0

Robert Sidney Cox, Curtis Madsen, James Alastair McLaughlin, Tramy Nguyen, Nicholas Roehner, Bryan Bartley, Jacob Beal, Michael Bissell, Kiri Choi, Kevin Clancy, Raik Grünberg, Chris Macklin, Goksel Misirli, Ernst Oberortner, Matthew Pocock, Meher Samineni, Michael Zhang, Zhen Zhang, Zach Zundel, John H. Gennari, Chris Myers, Herbert Sauro, Anil Wipat

Article number: 20180001

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Abstract

Synthetic biology builds upon the techniques and successes of genetics, molecular biology, and metabolic engineering by applying engineering principles to the design of biological systems. The field still faces substantial challenges, including long development times, high rates of failure, and poor reproducibility. One method to ameliorate these problems would be to improve the exchange of information about designed systems between laboratories. The synthetic biology open language (SBOL) has been developed as a standard to support the specification and exchange of biological design information in synthetic biology, filling a need not satisfied by other pre-existing standards. This document details version 2.2.0 of SBOL that builds upon version 2.1.0 published in last year’s JIB special issue. In particular, SBOL 2.2.0 includes improved description and validation rules for genetic design provenance, an extension to support combinatorial genetic designs, a new class to add non-SBOL data as attachments, a new class for genetic design implementations, and a description of a methodology to describe the entire design-build-test-learn cycle within the SBOL data model.

Open Access March 19, 2018

Synthetic Biology Open Language Visual (SBOL Visual) Version 2.0

Robert Sidney Cox, Curtis Madsen, James McLaughlin, Tramy Nguyen, Nicholas Roehner, Bryan Bartley, Swapnil Bhatia, Mike Bissell, Kevin Clancy, Thomas Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Augustin Luna, Nicolas Le Novère, Matthew Pocock, Herbert Sauro, John T. Sexton, Guy-Bart Stan, Jeffrey J. Tabor, Christopher A. Voigt, Zach Zundel, Chris Myers, Jacob Beal, Anil Wipat

Article number: 20170074

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Abstract

People who are engineering biological organisms often find it useful to communicate in diagrams, both about the structure of the nucleic acid sequences that they are engineering and about the functional relationships between sequence features and other molecular species. Some typical practices and conventions have begun to emerge for such diagrams. The Synthetic Biology Open Language Visual (SBOL Visual) has been developed as a standard for organizing and systematizing such conventions in order to produce a coherent language for expressing the structure and function of genetic designs. This document details version 2.0 of SBOL Visual, which builds on the prior SBOL Visual 1.0 standard by expanding diagram syntax to include functional interactions and molecular species, making the relationship between diagrams and the SBOL data model explicit, supporting families of symbol variants, clarifying a number of requirements and best practices, and significantly expanding the collection of diagram glyphs.

Open Access March 19, 2018

Simulation Experiment Description Markup Language (SED-ML) Level 1 Version 3 (L1V3)

Frank T. Bergmann, Jonathan Cooper, Matthias König, Ion Moraru, David Nickerson, Nicolas Le Novère, Brett G. Olivier, Sven Sahle, Lucian Smith, Dagmar Waltemath

Article number: 20170086

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Abstract

The creation of computational simulation experiments to inform modern biological research poses challenges to reproduce, annotate, archive, and share such experiments. Efforts such as SBML or CellML standardize the formal representation of computational models in various areas of biology. The Simulation Experiment Description Markup Language (SED-ML) describes what procedures the models are subjected to, and the details of those procedures. These standards, together with further COMBINE standards, describe models sufficiently well for the reproduction of simulation studies among users and software tools. The Simulation Experiment Description Markup Language (SED-ML) is an XML-based format that encodes, for a given simulation experiment, (i) which models to use; (ii) which modifications to apply to models before simulation; (iii) which simulation procedures to run on each model; (iv) how to post-process the data; and (v) how these results should be plotted and reported. SED-ML Level 1 Version 1 (L1V1) implemented support for the encoding of basic time course simulations. SED-ML L1V2 added support for more complex types of simulations, specifically repeated tasks and chained simulation procedures. SED-ML L1V3 extends L1V2 by means to describe which datasets and subsets thereof to use within a simulation experiment.

About this journal

Objective
Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics (JIB) is an international open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in all aspects of integrative bioinformatics.

Molecular biology produces huge amounts of data in the post-genomic era. This includes data describing metabolic mechanisms and pathways, structural genomic organization, patterns of regulatory regions; proteomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics. On the one hand, analysis of this data uses essentially the methods and concepts of computer science; on the other hand, the range of biological tasks solved by researchers determines the range and scope of the data. Currently, there are about 1,000 database systems and various analytical tools available via the Internet which are directed at solving various biological tasks.

The challenge we have is to integrate these list-parts and relationships from genomics and proteomics at novel levels of understanding. Integrative Bioinformatics is a new area of research using the tools of computer science and electronic infrastructure applied to Biotechnology. These tools will also represent the backbone of the concept of a virtual cell.

Topics

Software applications/tools and databases covering the following topics:

Molecular Databases, Information Systems and Data Warehouses
Integration of Data, Methods and Tools
Metabolic and Regulatory Network Modeling and Simulation
Signal Pathways and Cell Control
Network Analysis
Medical Informatics, Biomedicine and Biotechnology
Integrative Approaches for Drug Design
Integrative Data and Text Mining Approaches
Integrative, whole cell and molecular modeling
Visualization and animation

Review papers are also welcome with regard to JIB.tools.

Article formats
Research articles, Review papers, Workshop contributions (if peer-reviewed)

Article processing charges (APCs)
Each unsolicited article, which is accepted for publication in the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics is subject to an Article Processing Charge of 1,000€.
The Open Access publication of invited articles for Special Issues is sponsored by the editors.

Inquiries concerning APCs should be addressed to the Editorial Office at De Gruyter (see contact details below).