Modeling the process of human body iron homeostasis using a variant of timed Petri nets

Abstract

The body iron homeostasis is one of the most important processes in the human body. This complex process is not fully understood and until recently only some parts of it have been described in the literature. In our recent papers the main part of the process has been described and a model based on Petri net theory has been proposed. However, in this model any time dependencies occurring in the biochemical process have not been taken into account. In the present paper the model is enriched in the way that durations of biochemical reactions composing this process have been included into the model. A variant of Petri net where with each place a time interval is associated has been used in order to describe these dependencies. The time interval associated with a place corresponds to a time lag of biochemical conditions which must be fulfilled in order to enable a biochemical reaction to start. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.