BioAmbients: an abstraction for biological compartments

Biomolecular systems, composed of networks of proteins, underlie the major functions of living cells. Compartments are key to the organization of such systems. We have previously developed an abstraction for biomolecular systems using the pi-calculus process algebra, which successfully handled their molecular and biochemical aspects, but provided only a limited solution for representing compartments. In this work, we extend this abstraction to handle compartments. We are motivated by the ambient calculus, a process algebra for the specification of process location and movement through computational domains. We present the BioAmbients calculus, which is suitable for representing various aspects of molecular localization and compartmentalization, including the movement of molecules between compartments, the dynamic rearrangement of cellular compartments, and the interaction between molecules in a compartmentalized setting. Guided by the calculus, we adapt the BioSpi simulation system, to provide an extended modular framework for molecular and cellular compartmentalization, and we use it to model and study a complex multi-cellular system. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.