Figure 5. toyMetabolites change the expression of toyGRNs.

This is the same example illustrated in Figure 4, but with the addition of a toyMetabolite able to bind toyDimers 1–2 and 1–3. When these toyDimers bind to the toyMetabolite, they no longer participate in the regulation phase, and thus states (1, 0, 1), (1, 1, 0) and (1, 1, 1) are all mapped to state (1, 1, 0) in the presence of this toyMetabolite. In other words, the presence of the toyMetabolite changes three entries in the truth table, and therefore the associated Boolean network —whose asymptotic state is now a different one.