Object-oriented biological system integration: a SARS coronavirus example

MOTIVATION: The importance of studying biology at the system level has been well recognized, yet there is no well-defined process or consistent methodology to integrate and represent biological information at this level. To overcome this hurdle, a blending of disciplines such as computer science and biology is necessary. RESULTS: By applying an adapted, sequential software engineering process, a complex biological system (severe acquired respiratory syndrome-coronavirus viral infection) has been reverse-engineered and represented as an object-oriented software system. The scalability of this object-oriented software engineering approach indicates that we can apply this technology for the integration of large complex biological systems. AVAILABILITY: A navigable web-based version of the system is freely available at http://people.musc.edu/~zhengw/SARS/Software-Process.htm