Skip to content

Introducing the dFBA tab for intracellular in PhysiCell Studio#343

Merged
rheiland merged 8 commits intoPhysiCell-Tools:developmentfrom
marcorusc:dFBA
Apr 2, 2026
Merged

Introducing the dFBA tab for intracellular in PhysiCell Studio#343
rheiland merged 8 commits intoPhysiCell-Tools:developmentfrom
marcorusc:dFBA

Conversation

@marcorusc
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Hello Randy,

afer a long time, here is the PR for the dFBA tab in intracellular, ready to welcome dFBA!
The structure of the code emulates the PhysiBoSS one, but it is of course tailored for the dFBA xml syntax. An xml file for dFBA has the following structure (example from the ecoli sample project):

<intracellular type="dfba"> <settings> <sbml_filename>./config/Ecoli_core.xml</sbml_filename> <intracellular_dt>0.01</intracellular_dt> </settings> <transport_model> <exchange substrate="glucose"> <fba_flux>R_EX_glc__D_e</fba_flux> <Km units="mM">0.02</Km> <Vmax units="fmol/pg DW cell/min">8.0</Vmax> </exchange> <exchange substrate="acetate"> <fba_flux>R_EX_ac_e</fba_flux> <Km units="mM">1</Km> <Vmax units="fmol/pg DW cell/min">0.0</Vmax> </exchange> <exchange substrate="oxygen"> <fba_flux>R_EX_o2_e</fba_flux> <Km units="mM">0.002</Km> <Vmax units="fmol/pg DW cell/min">18</Vmax> </exchange> <exchange substrate="CO2"> <fba_flux>R_EX_co2_e</fba_flux> <Km units="mM">1</Km> <Vmax units="fmol/pg DW cell/min">0.0</Vmax> </exchange> </transport_model> <growth_model> <cell_density units="g/ml">1.04</cell_density> <reference_volume units="micron^3">1.3</reference_volume> <max_growth_rate units="1/min">0.8</max_growth_rate> <objective_reaction>R_BIOMASS_Ecoli_core_w_GAM</objective_reaction> </growth_model> </intracellular>

and the tab looks like this:
image

the files touched are mainly: cell_def_tab.py and populate_tree_cell_defs.py

This version is compatible with the PhysiCelldFBA version in the development branch (https://github.com/PhysiCelldFBA/PhysiCelldFBA/tree/development).

Please let me know what you think! Feedback are of course welcome and appreciated!

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings April 2, 2026 08:30
Copy link
Copy Markdown

Copilot AI left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Copilot wasn't able to review any files in this pull request.


💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.

@rheiland rheiland merged commit 2dc9261 into PhysiCell-Tools:development Apr 2, 2026
@rheiland
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

rheiland commented Apr 2, 2026

OK, I merged. But upon doing further tests, I seem to experience unexpected behavior. If I create 2 cell types and select the dFBA panel for the 1st cell type, but then change it to the Boolean panel, then select the 2nd cell type (which has none for its Intracellular panel, then select the 1st cell type, it seems to have dFBA as its chosen panel, rather than Boolean.

@marcorusc
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

mmm nice catch Randy, I did not try dFBA with Boolean, I am on it!

@rheiland
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

rheiland commented Apr 7, 2026

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting mixing intracellular models. Rather, I just thought the GUI logic was confusing: 1) select cell type A, 2) select a type of intracellular model from the dropdown, 3) select cell type B, 4) select cell type A again and it doesn't seem to remember the last selected intracellular model type. It's not an error. The main thing is that you've got this terrific new functionality available now.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

3 participants