The biological processes of cellular decision making and differentiation involve a plethora of signaling pathways and gene regulatory circuits. These networks in turn exhibit a multitude of motifs playing crucial parts in regulating network activity. Here we compare the topological placement of motifs in gene regulatory and signaling networks and observe that it suggests different evolutionary strategies in motif distribution for distinct cellular subnetworks.

• Received 24 October 2017
• Revised 18 December 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.97.042417