Correlation between structure and temperature in prokaryotic metabolic networks

Background: In recent years, an extensive characterization of network structures has been made in an effort to elucidate design principles of metabolic networks, providing valuable insights into the functional organization and the evolutionary history of organisms. However, previous analyses have not discussed the effects of environmental factors (i.e., exogenous forces) in shaping network structures. In this work, we investigate the effect of temperature, which is one of the environmental factors that may have contributed to shaping structures of metabolic networks. Results: For this, we investigate the correlations between several structural properties characterized by graph metrics like the edge density, the degree exponent, the clustering coefficient, and the subgraph concentration in the metabolic networks of 113 prokaryotes and optimal growth temperature. As a result, we find that these structural properties are correlated with the optimal growth temperature. With increasing tem...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: BMCBI
• Authors: Kazuhiro Takemoto, Jose C. Nacher, Tatsuya Akutsu
• Keywords: BMCBI 2007, Clustering Coefficient, Metabolic Networks, Optimal Growth Temperature