Figure 1.

Integration motif. If we consider one pathway in a system, a simple mathematical motif can be described as above. This motif will be only one pathway considered when defining the system, and indeed multiple motifs will be present when considering a disease state, with all of the motifs interacting. (Modified from ref (4). Copyright 2011 The Physiological Society.) For each disease state, multiple motifs at different scales and different levels will be present. For example, in heart attack, one necessary motif to analyze may be ion channel flux represented by protein function on a millisecond scale. Another motif may be plaque formation represented by lipid function on a scale of months. Many other motifs will necessarily be described in heart attack.