title: How biologically relevant are interaction-based modules in protein networks?
abstract: By applying a graph-based algorithm to yeast protein-interaction networks we have extracted modular structures and show that they can be validated using information from the phylogenetic conservation of the network components. We show that the module cores, the parts with the highest intramodular connectivity, are biologically relevant components of the networks. These constituents correlate only weakly with other levels of organization. We also discuss how such structures could be used for finding targets for antimicrobial drugs.
authors.affiliation: Evolutionary Systems Biology Initiative, Structural and Computational Biology Program, Spanish National Cancer Center (CNIO), Melchor Fernández Almagro 3, 28029 Madrid, Spain. jpoyatos@cnio.es
authors.forename: Juan F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Poyatos
authors.forename: Laurence D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Hurst
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence / Q000235:genetics; D003196:Computer Graphics; D017124:Conserved Sequence / Q000235:genetics; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D025941:Protein Interaction Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins; D010455:Peptides