A pedagogical walkthrough of computational modeling and simulation of Wnt signaling pathway using static causal models in Matlab

A tutorial introduction to computational modeling of Wnt signaling pathway in a human colorectal cancer dataset using static Bayesian network models is provided. The walkthrough might aid bio-logists/informaticians in understanding the design of computational experiments that is interleaved with exposition of the Matlab code and causal models from Bayesian Network toolbox. This is done in order to ease the understanding of beginner students and researchers in transition to computational signaling biology, who intend to work in the field of modeling of signaling pathways. The manuscript expounds the computational flow of the contents in advance article1 via code development and takes the reader in a step by step process of how • the collection and the transformation of the available biological information from literature is done, • the integration of the heterogeneous data and prior biological knowledge in the network is achieved, • conditional probability tables for nodes in biologically inspired tables are estimated, • the simulation study is designed, • the hypothesis regarding a biological phenomena is transformed into computational framework, and • results and inferences drawn using d-connectivity/separability are reported. The manuscript finally ends with a programming assignment to help the readers get hands on experience of a perturbation project. Matlab code with dataset is made available under GNU GPL v3 license at google code project on https://code.google.com/p/static-bn-for-wnt-signaling-pathwayInsight, Innovation and IntegrationSimulation study involving computational experiments dealing with Wnt signaling pathways abound in literature but often lack a pedagogical perspective that might ease the understanding of beginner students and researchers in transition who intend to work on modeling of the pathway. This paucity might happen due to restrictive policies which enforce an unwanted embargo on the sharing of important scientific knowledge. The manuscript elucidates embedding of prior biological knowledge, integration of heterogeneous information, transformation of biological hypothesis into computational framework and design of experiments in a simple manner interleaved with aspects of Bayesian Network toolbox and Matlab code so as to help readers get a feel of a project related to modeling of the pathway.