Towards the Existential Control of Boolean Networks: A Preliminary Report (Extended Abstract)

TL;DR

This paper explores a method for controlling Boolean networks by identifying minimal vertex subsets to steer the system between attractors, leveraging network modularity for efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces a novel decomposition-based approach to find minimal control sets in Boolean networks, improving scalability for large, modular systems.

Findings

Method based on strongly connected components for control subset computation

Potential for improved efficiency in large, structured networks

Implementation in progress for practical application

Abstract

Given a Boolean network BN and a subset A of attractors of BN, we study the problem of identifying a minimal subset C of vertices of BN, such that the dynamics of BN can reach from a state s in any attractor As in A to any attractor At in A by controlling or toggling a subset of vertices in C in a single time step. We describe a method based on the decomposition of the network structure into strongly connected components called blocks. The control subset can be locally computed for each such block and the results then merged to derive the global control subset C. This potentially improves the efficiency for many real-life networks that are large but modular and well-structured. We are currently in the process of implementing our method in software.