ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on to what extent can the modeling strategies and explanations in systems biology be characterized as mechanistic. Although it is possible to focus on differences between dynamic models in systems biology and mechanistic explanations in general instead highlight the continuity between the two by introducing the notion of dynamic mechanistic explanation. The chapter explores mechanisms in systems biology further via the use of network analysis. The analysis of a network motif is still a dynamic mechanistic explanation. An important research question in systems biology is the extent to which biological functions rely on general design principles that are largely independent of specific causal details and particular contexts of implementation. Design principles are abstractions that describe characteristic organizational features of importance for a system's functionality, such as negative feedback control, network motif configurations, or common architectures of biological and engineered networks.
