2002/05/17 by Sergei Maslov, Kim Sneppen · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech #q-bio
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1065103
published as Science, 296, 910-913 (2002) · 17 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2002/05/17 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
Molecular networks guide the biochemistry of a living cell on multiple levels: its metabolic and signalling 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 quantify correlations between connectivities of interacting nodes and compare them to a null model of a network, in which al links were randomly rewired. We find that for both interaction and regulatory networks, links between highly connected proteins are systematically suppressed, while 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.