Background: Networks have been widely used to model the structures of various biological systems. The ultimate\naim of research on biological networks is to steer biological system structures to desired states by manipulating\nsignals. Despite great advances in the linear control of single-layer networks, it has been observed that many\ncomplex biological systems have a multilayer networked structure and extremely complicated nonlinear processes.\nResult: In this study, we propose a general framework for controlling nonlinear dynamical systems with multilayer\nnetworked structures by formulating the problem as a minimum union optimization problem. In particular, we offer\na novel approach for identifying the minimal driver nodes that can steer a multilayered nonlinear dynamical system\ntoward any desired dynamical attractor. Three disease-related biology multilayer networks are used to demonstrate\nthe effectiveness of our approaches. Moreover, in the set of minimum driver nodes identified by the algorithm we\nproposed, we confirmed that some nodes can act as drug targets in the biological experiments. Other nodes\nhave not been reported as drug targets; however, they are also involved in important biological processes from\nexisting literature.\nConclusions: The proposed method could be a promising tool for determining higher drug target enrichment or\nmore meaningful steering nodes for studying complex diseases.
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