Systems biology of the human red blood cell.

While the potential possibilities of systems biology appear to hold great promise, there are still many challenges to overcome, notably lack of complete characterization of biological components and their interactions and ways to measure these changes experimentally. The comparative simplicity of the human red cell sidesteps much of these challenges. Detailed models of human red cell metabolism have been developed for the last quarter century and continued development of these models has resulted in the ability to make functional phenotype predictions, in silico. Additionally, existing experimental proteomic and metabolomic technologies now provide the capability to perform individualized characterization of erythrocytes. While an experimentally testable systems biology model of most human cells is presently out of reach, it may be achievable with the red cell.