Protein-protein interaction network querying by a "focus and zoom" approach
We propose an approach to network querying in protein-protein interaction networks based on bipartite graph weighted matching. An algorithm is presented that first “focuses” the potentially relevant portion of the target graph by performing a global alignment of this one with the query graph, and then “zooms” on the actual matching nodes by considering their topological arrangement, hereby obtaining a (possibly) approximated occurrence of the query graph within the target graph. Approximation is related to node insertions, node deletions and edge deletions possibly intervening in the query graph. The technique manages networks of arbitrary topology. Moreover, edge labels are used to represe…
Searching for repetitions in biological networks: methods, resources and tools
We present here a compact overview of the data, models and methods proposed for the analysis of biological networks based on the search for significant repetitions. In particular, we concentrate on three problems widely studied in the literature: ‘network alignment’, ‘network querying’ and ‘network motif extraction’. We provide (i) details of the experimental techniques used to obtain the main types of interaction data, (ii) descriptions of the models and approaches introduced to solve such problems and (iii) pointers to both the available databases and software tools. The intent is to lay out a useful roadmap for identifying suitable strategies to analyse cellular data, possibly based on t…
Asymmetric Comparison and Querying of Biological Networks
Comparing and querying the protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks of different organisms is important to infer knowledge about conservation across species. Known methods that perform these tasks operate symmetrically, i.e., they do not assign a distinct role to the input PPI networks. However, in most cases, the input networks are indeed distinguishable on the basis of how the corresponding organism is biologically well characterized. In this paper a new idea is developed, that is, to exploit differences in the characterization of organisms at hand in order to devise methods for comparing their PPI networks. We use the PPI network (called Master) of the best characterized organism as a …
"Master-Slave" Biological Network Alignment
Performing global alignment between protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks of different organisms is important to infer knowledge about conservation across species. Known methods that perform this task operate symmetrically, that is to say, they do not assign a distinct role to the input PPI networks. However, in most cases, the input networks are indeed distinguishable on the basis of how well the corresponding organism is biologically well-characterized. For well-characterized organisms the associated PPI network supposedly encode in a sound manner all the information about their proteins and associated interactions, which is far from being the case for not well characterized ones. He…
Extracting similar sub-graphs across PPI Networks
Singling out conserved modules (corresponding to connected sub-graphs) throughout protein-protein interaction networks of different organisms is a main issue in bioinformatics because of its potential applications in biology. This paper presents a method to discover highly matching sub-graphs in such networks. Sub-graph extraction is carried out by taking into account, on the one side, both protein sequence and network structure similarities and, on the other side, both quantitative and reliability information possibly available about interactions. The method is conceived as a generalization of a known technique, able to discover functional orthologs in interaction networks. Some preliminar…