Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 21, 2025

Applying Cheminformatics to Develop a Structure Searchable Database of Analytical Methods
Published on: June 6, 2025
SWITCHES: Searchable Web Interface for Topologies of CHEmical Switches
G V HarshaRani1, S Moza1, N Ramakrishnan2
1Department of Neurobiology, National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore 560065, India.
Summary:
Bistable biochemical switches are key motifs in cellular state decisions and long-term storage of cellular 'memory'. There are a few known biological switches that have been well characterized, however, these examples are insufficient for systematic surveys of properties of these important systems. Here we present a resource of all possible bistable biochemical reaction networks with up to six reactions between three molecules, and three reactions between four molecules. Over 35 000 reaction topologies were constructed by identifying unique combinations of reactions between a fixed number of molecules. Then, these topologies were populated with rates within a biologically realistic range. The Searchable Web Interface for Topologies of CHEmical Switches (SWITCHES, https://switches.ncbs.res.in) provides a bistability and parameter analysis of over seven million models from this systematic survey of chemical reaction space. This database will be useful for theoreticians interested in analyzing stability in chemical systems and also experimentalists for creating robust synthetic biological switches.
Availability And Implementation:
Freely available on the web at https://switches.ncbs.res.in. Website implemented in PHP, MariaDB, Graphviz and Apache, with all major browsers supported.
More Related Videos
08:01A Web Tool for Generating High Quality Machine-readable Biological Pathways
Published on: February 8, 2017
09:04Identifying Per- and Polyfluorinated Chemical Species with a Combined Targeted and Non-Targeted-Screening High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry Workflow
Published on: April 18, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Ligand Binding and Linkage
Protein-protein Interfaces
Chemical Synapses
Because chemical synapses depend on the release of neurotransmitter molecules from synaptic vesicles to pass on their signal, there is an approximately one millisecond delay between when the axon potential reaches the presynaptic terminal and when the neurotransmitter leads to opening of postsynaptic ion channels. Additionally, this signaling is...
Chemical Synapses
Because chemical synapses depend on the release of neurotransmitter molecules from synaptic vesicles to pass on their signal, there is an approximately one millisecond delay between when the axon potential reaches the presynaptic terminal and when the neurotransmitter leads to opening of postsynaptic ion channels. Additionally, this signaling is...
Ligand Binding Sites
Ligand Binding Sites
Protein-ligand interactions are quite specific; even though numerous potential ligands surround a cellular protein at any given time, only a particular ligand can bind to that protein. Moreover, a ligand binds only to a dedicated area on the surface of the protein, known as the...