On the number of biologically valid logics
The fraction of logics that are biologically permitted can be bounded and shown to be tiny, which makes inferring them from experiments easier.
Networks of gene regulation are responsible for such complex feats as morphogenesis and cell programming. At a molecular level, they rely on local updates rules, or logics. But quantitative insights into how many and which logics are used have proved elusive. We analyze the number of biologically permitted logics, which we calculated in a recent paper using the composition of Boolean functions, and bound it with a simple function of the local connectivity. It confirms that the range of biological logics is highly restricted, which makes it easier to infer them through experiments.