The Rybosys project uses systems biology approaches to model pre-messenger RNA and pre-ribosomal RNA metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and so aids understanding of these complex cellular pathways. The project is funded for four years from January 2006 through a 2.4M Euro grant from the European Commission, Sixth Framework Programme: Life Sciences, Genomics and Biotechnology for Health. In the framework of this project research consortium have been created. It consits from high qualified scientists from UK, France, Israel, Poland and Russia. Institute for Systems Biology SPb takes part in the development of mathematic models of rRNA processing and in the development of the new methods of the specific experimental data analysis. More detail about processes which have been studied in the framework of this project you could read HERE.

There are several main aims, which have been stidied during Rybosys Project:

• quantify mRNA and rRNA precursors and directly determine rates for their transcription and processing or degradation through the various post-transcriptional pathways
• produce two comparable mathematical representations of the processing and degradation of pre-mRNAs and pre-rRNAs, and populate the parameters using quantitative experimental data.
• manipulate the model parameters and make predictions about the behaviour of the systems.
• test the predictions experimentally, using yeast mutants that block specific steps.
• use tiling microarrays to investigate antisense and intergenic transcripts, analyse correlations in their expression patterns, and the effects of mutations in transcription, splicing and RNA turnover factors on their transcription and stability.
• use refined imaging techniques to visualise individual transcripts to determine whether the population data reflect the situation in individual cells.