Goodsell DS, Olson AJ, Forli S. Art and Science of the Cellular Mesoscale.
Trends Biochem Sci 2020;
45:472-483. [PMID:
32413324 PMCID:
PMC7230070 DOI:
10.1016/j.tibs.2020.02.010]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/30/2019] [Revised: 02/12/2020] [Accepted: 02/27/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
Experimental information from microscopy, structural biology, and bioinformatics may be integrated to build structural models of entire cells with molecular detail. This integrative modeling is challenging in several ways: the intrinsic complexity of biology results in models with many closely packed and heterogeneous components; the wealth of available experimental data is scattered among multiple resources and must be gathered, reconciled, and curated; and computational infrastructure is only now gaining the capability of modeling and visualizing systems of this complexity. We present recent efforts to address these challenges, both with artistic approaches to depicting the cellular mesoscale, and development and application of methods to build quantitative models.
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