Bipartite graphs in systems biology and medicine: a survey of methods and applications

The latest advances in high-throughput techniques during the past decade allowed the systems biology field to expand significantly. Today, the focus of biologists has shifted from the study of individual biological components to the study of complex biological systems and their dynamics at a larger...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Gigascience 2018-04, Vol.7 (4), p.1-31
Main Authors: Pavlopoulos, Georgios A, Kontou, Panagiota I, Pavlopoulou, Athanasia, Bouyioukos, Costas, Markou, Evripides, Bagos, Pantelis G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Biological activity
Biology
Computer Graphics
Graphs
Life Sciences & Biomedicine - Other Topics
Medicine - methods
Review
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Systems Biology - methods
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The latest advances in high-throughput techniques during the past decade allowed the systems biology field to expand significantly. Today, the focus of biologists has shifted from the study of individual biological components to the study of complex biological systems and their dynamics at a larger scale. Through the discovery of novel bioentity relationships, researchers reveal new information about biological functions and processes. Graphs are widely used to represent bioentities such as proteins, genes, small molecules, ligands, and others such as nodes and their connections as edges within a network. In this review, special focus is given to the usability of bipartite graphs and their impact on the field of network biology and medicine. Furthermore, their topological properties and how these can be applied to certain biological case studies are discussed. Finally, available methodologies and software are presented, and useful insights on how bipartite graphs can shape the path toward the solution of challenging biological problems are provided.
ISSN:2047-217X
2047-217X
DOI:10.1093/gigascience/giy014