Global properties of biological networks.
This article discusses the most recent achievements in understanding the biological implications of the small-world and scale-free global topological properties of genetic, proteomic and metabolic networks. Most importantly, these networks are highly clustered and have small node-to-node distances. With their few very connected nodes, which are statistically unlikely to fail under random conditions, the proper functioning of these systems is maintained under external perturbations.
Grigorov
Martin G
MG
Nestlé Research Center, BioAnalytical Science, CH-1000 Lausanne 26, Switzerland. martin.grigorov@rdls.nestle.com
D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D008954:Models, Biological