Evaluating the minimum size of a data set to reverse engineer a regulatory gene network

The gene network of the Drosophila embryo has been identified and studied in the past using spatio-temporal data sets. Unfortunately for the majority of biological systems spatial data is not available and the amount of gene expression data needed to reverse engineer their regulatory network is still unknown. In order to identify the minimum number of data points you’ll use the well-known Drosophila regulatory network as a case study. Starting from the PDE system describing its spatio-temporal gene expression, you’ll decouple the spatial component from the system of equations. Afterward, using artificial data sets generated from the known network, you’ll look for the minimum number data points necessary to correctly retrieve the gene expression network.