title: Rich can get poor: conversion of hub to non-hub proteins.
abstract: Hubs are ubiquitous network elements with high connectivity. One of the common observations about hub proteins is their preferential attachment leading to scale-free network topology. Here we examine the question: does rich protein always get richer, or can it get poor too? To answer this question, we compared similar and well-annotated hub proteins in six organisms, from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. Our findings indicate that hub proteins retain, gain or lose connectivity based on the context. Furthermore, the loss or gain of connectivity appears to correlate with the functional role of the protein in a given system.
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Biology Lab, RIKEN Advanced Sciences Institute, 1-7-22, Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi, 230-0045, Yokohama, Japan, kyawtun@gsc.riken.jp.
authors.forename: Kyaw
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tun
authors.forename: Raghuraj Keshava
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Lakshminarayanan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Samavedham
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Pawan K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Dhar