This page describes a "shorthand" version of SBML that is much easier to read and write by hand than real SBML, together with a software tool that translates the shorthand model description to real SBML.
It isn't really meant as a complete alternative to GUI model-building tools. It is just a useful tool for rapid building of essential model structure. Once the basics are defined, you can translate to SBML and load up in the GUI tool of your choice.
The following is a complete description of a simple enzyme-kinetics model using the shorthand notation.
@model:2.3.1=MichaelisMentenKinetics "Michaelis-Menten Kinetics"
@compartments
cell=1
@species
cell:Substrate=1000
cell:Enzyme=100
cell:Complex=0
cell:Product=0
@parameters
k1=1
k1r=2
@reactions
@rr=SubstrateEnzymeBinding "Substrate-enzyme binding"
Substrate+Enzyme -> Complex
k1*Substrate*Enzyme-k1r*Complex
@r=Conversion
Complex -> Product + Enzyme
k2*Complex : k2=3
You can download this example: mm.mod. Using the translation tool below, this model translates to this SBML.
- SBML-shorthand specification, version 3.1.1 (PDF) - targeted at SBML Level 3, Version 1.
pip install sbmlsh
- mod2sbml documentation (PDF) (version 3.1.1.1), which is targeted at SBML-shorthand version 3.1.1, and all previous versions.
- sbml2mod (version 3.1.1.1) is the reverse translation tool for Level 3, version 1 and all previous versions.
Obviously, as the shorthand specification does not contain all SBML
features, there is likely to be loss involved. However, there should be
no semantic loss in the round-trip SBML-sh -> SBML -> SBML-sh. ie.
doing a mod2sbml
conversion followed by a sbml2mod
conversion
should get back to a shorthand file that is semantically equivalent to
the original.