A novel framework for the comparative analysis of biological networks

Genome sequencing projects provide nearly complete lists of the individual components present in an organism, but reveal little about how they work together. Follow-up initiatives have deciphered thousands of dynamic and context-dependent interrelationships between gene products that need to be anal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-02, Vol.7 (2), p.e31220-e31220
Main Authors: Pache, Roland A, Aloy, Patrick
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Alignment
Animals
Backup software
Bioinformatics
Biological effects
Biology
Comparative analysis
Computer networks
Crosstalk
Drosophila melanogaster - metabolism
Encyclopedias
Gene Regulatory Networks
Gene sequencing
Genomes
Genomics
Humans
Kinases
Networks
Probability
Proteins
Reverse engineering
Saccharomyces cerevisiae - metabolism
Signal Transduction
Signaling
Topology
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Summary:Genome sequencing projects provide nearly complete lists of the individual components present in an organism, but reveal little about how they work together. Follow-up initiatives have deciphered thousands of dynamic and context-dependent interrelationships between gene products that need to be analyzed with novel bioinformatics approaches able to capture their complex emerging properties. Here, we present a novel framework for the alignment and comparative analysis of biological networks of arbitrary topology. Our strategy includes the prediction of likely conserved interactions, based on evolutionary distances, to counter the high number of missing interactions in the current interactome networks, and a fast assessment of the statistical significance of individual alignment solutions, which vastly increases its performance with respect to existing tools. Finally, we illustrate the biological significance of the results through the identification of novel complex components and potential cases of cross-talk between pathways and alternative signaling routes.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0031220