Petri nets in modelling glucose regulating processes in the liver

TL;DR

This paper develops a Petri net model of liver glucose regulation processes, specifically glycolysis and glucose synthesis, to better understand diabetes-related biological mechanisms and analyze their properties.

Contribution

It introduces the first Petri net model of liver glucose regulation processes based on medical literature, enabling analysis of biological interactions during fasting and feeding.

Findings

Model captures enzyme and substance interactions accurately.

Analysis reveals properties like deadlocks and reachability.

Model aligns with biological processes during fasting and feeding.

Abstract

Diabetes is a chronic condition, considered one of the civilization diseases, that is characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. There is no doubt that more and more people is going to suffer from diabetes, hence it is crucial to understand better its biological foundations. The essential processes related to the control of glucose levels in the blood are: glycolysis (process of breaking down of glucose) and glucose synthesis, both taking place in the liver. The glycolysis occurs during feeding and it is stimulated by insulin. On the other hand, the glucose synthesis arises during fasting and it is stimulated by glucagon. In the paper we present a Petri net model of glycolysis and glucose synthesis in the liver. The model is created based on medical literature. Standard Petri nets techniques are used to analyse the properties of the model: traps, reachability graphs, tokens dynamics, deadlocks analysis. The results are described in the paper. Our analysis shows that the model captures the interactions between different enzymes and substances, which is consistent with the biological processes occurring during fasting and feeding. The model constitutes the first element of our long-time goal to create the whole body model of the glucose regulation in a healthy human and a person with diabetes.