title: On the functional and structural characterization of hubs in protein-protein interaction networks.
abstract: A number of interesting issues have been addressed on biological networks about their global and local properties. The connection between the topological properties of proteins in Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) networks and their biological relevance has been investigated focusing on hubs, i.e. proteins with a large number of interacting partners. We will survey the literature trying to answer the following questions: Do hub proteins have special biological properties? Do they tend to be more essential than non-hub proteins? Are they more evolutionarily conserved? Do they play a central role in modular organization of the protein interaction network? Are there structural properties that characterize hub proteins?
authors.affiliation: IASI-CNR, viale Manzoni 30, Roma, Italy. paola.bertolazzi@iasi.cnr.it
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bertolazzi
authors.forename: Mary Ellen
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Bock
authors.forename: Concettina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guerra
mesh_terms: D030562:Databases, Protein; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D025941:Protein Interaction Mapping; D060066:Protein Interaction Maps; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins