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cells, an organism and entire ecosystems develop (new patterns and properties always

emerge, emergence).

Question 9.3

In the book, we learned about numerous methods such as genomics, transcriptomics, pro­

teomics and metagenomics (please refer to Sect. 9.2).

Question 9.4

New properties and effects that result from components coming together but are not attrib­

utable to the individual components (a system is much more than the sum of its parts). An

example is the circulatory system (supplies body with nutrients and oxygen and has pulse

and blood pressure, results from interaction of many individual blood and heart mus­

cle cells).

Question 9.5

The best way to do this is to look at Fig. 9.4 (links) and link the two networks.

Question 9.6

The EPO production with the help of quadratic function (see the task on R in the tutorial).

Question 9.7

The simplest way is to look at water and its flow behaviour: If it stands still, flow is dead

(so also at living systems). If pressure is not too strong (e.g. look at Main at Würzburg,

when flowing within its riverbed with normal amount of water), flow is nice and steady

(“healthy state” at living systems). If the pressure is even stronger (e.g. at the weir under

the old Main bridge), then the flow becomes swirled (“turbulent”) and uneven, chaotic (a

sign of stress in chaotic systems). There are numerous educational films about systems

biology, especially in English, e.g. Systems biology explained (Weizmann institute);

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCFoZDlV4FY.

Question 9.8

System state 1: Heart at rest, all is well.

System state 2: Heart in sympathetic activation, heart beats faster, but normal load, for

example during sports (healthy).

System state 3: Heart has too much work, third Erk phosphorylation is activated (a tip­

ping point, when then more and more heart cells are switched this way, hypertrophy, is

currently irreversible).

System state 4: Cardiac hypertrophy, now the heart has too little oxygen, therefore

simultaneous activation of both activation pathways. Myocardial infarction, collapse: not

shown here, but of course the late consequence of untreated heart failure.

20  Solutions to the Exercises