Growing functional modules from a seed protein via integration of protein interaction and gene expression data

Background: Nowadays modern biology aims at unravelling the strands of complex biological structures such as the protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. A key concept in the organization of PPI networks is the existence of dense subnetworks (functional modules) in them. In recent approaches clustering algorithms were applied at these networks and the resulting subnetworks were evaluated by estimating the coverage of well-established protein complexes they contained. However, most of these algorithms elaborate on an unweighted graph structure which in turn fails to elevate those interactions that would contribute to the construction of biologically more valid and coherent functional modules. Results: In the current study, we present a method that corroborates the integration of protein interaction and microarray data via the discovery of biologically valid functional modules. Initially the gene expression information is overlaid as weights onto the PPI network and the enriched PPI ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Ioannis A. Maraziotis, Konstantina Dimitrakopoulou, Anastasios Bezerianos
• Keywords: BMCBI 2007, Functional Modules, Ppi Network, Proteins