P_UNSAT approach of attractor calculation for Boolean gene regulatory networks

Boolean network models provide an efficient way for studying gene regulatory networks. The main dynamics of a Boolean network is determined by its attractors. Attractor calculation plays a key role for analyzing Boolean gene regulatory networks. An approach of attractor calculation was proposed in this study, which combined the predecessor approach and the logic unsatisfiability approach to accelerate attractor calculation. The proposed algorithm is effective to calculate all attractors for large-scale Boolean gene regulatory networks even the networks with a relatively large average degree.