Systems Biology Brings Life Sciences Closer: —Report on the China-UK Systems Biology Workshop 2005

Chen, Ming

The final session contained two talks. One is by Zichun Hua (Nanjing University, China). He focused on the structural and functional analysis of Fas-associated death domain (FADD) protein. The animal models and bioinformatic analysis of FADD mutants suggested that FADD acquired a C-terminal domain during evolution and is invovled in regulating T and B cell development. FADD and its phosphorylation have additional roles in controlling pathways of cellular activation and proliferation. FADD phosphorylation may confer the protein better stability and it displays different gene expression and proteomic profiles, while the kinase modifying FADD phosphorylation is still under investigation. The other one is by Yi Li (University of York). He proposed a systems biology approach to the Arabidopsis seed germination. To understand the Arabidopsis complex biological phenotype, he modeled its underlying genetic regulatory network through the integrative analysis of high-throughput “-omics” data and the tracking of the spatial and temporal behavior of selected target genes. He also discussed existing and prospective work in this context.