Specificity and Stability in Topology of Protein Networks

作者：Sergei Maslov, Kim Sneppen · 发表于：Science · 年份：2002 · DOI：10.1126/science.1065103 · 被引用次数：3147 · 研究领域：Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks、Gene Regulatory Network Analysis、Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction

Molecular networks guide the biochemistry of a living cell on multiple levels: Its metabolic and signaling pathways are shaped by the network of interacting proteins, whose production, in turn, is controlled by the genetic regulatory network. To address topological properties of these two networks, we quantified correlations between connectivities of interacting nodes and compared them to a null model of a network, in which all links were randomly rewired. We found that for both interaction and regulatory networks, links between highly connected proteins are systematically suppressed, whereas those between a highly connected and low-connected pairs of proteins are favored. This effect decreases the likelihood of cross talk between different functional modules of the cell and increases the overall robustness of a network by localizing effects of deleterious perturbations.