"The goal of this book is to disseminate research results and best practices from cross-disciplinary researchers and practitioners interested in, and working on bioinformatics, data mining, and proteomics"--Provided by publisher.

Current PPI databases do not offer sophisticated querying interfaces and especially do not integrate existing information about proteins. Current algorithms for PIN analysis use only topological information, while emerging approaches attempt to exploit the biological knowledge related to proteins and kinds of interaction, e.g. protein function, localization, structure, described in Gene Ontology or PDB. The book discusses technologies, standards and databases for, respectively, generating, representing and storing PPI data. It also describes main algorithms and tools for the analysis, comparison and knowledge extraction from PINs. Moreover, some case studies and applications of PINs are also discussed.

The analysis of protein-protein interactions is fundamental to the understanding of cellular organization, processes, and functions. Proteins seldom act as single isolated species; rather, proteins involved in the same cellular processes often interact with each other. Functions of uncharacterized proteins can be predicted through comparison with the interactions of similar known proteins. Recent large-scale investigations of protein-protein interactions using such techniques as two-hybrid systems, mass spectrometry, and protein microarrays have enriched the available protein interaction data and facilitated the construction of integrated protein-protein interaction networks. The resulting large volume of protein-protein interaction data has posed a challenge to experimental investigation. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of the computational methods available for the analysis of protein-protein interaction networks. It offers an in-depth survey of a range of approaches, including statistical, topological, data-mining, and ontology-based methods. The author discusses the fundamental principles underlying each of these approaches and their respective benefits and drawbacks, and she offers suggestions for future research.

This volume explores techniques that study interactions between proteins in different species, and combines them with context-specific data, analysis of omics datasets, and assembles individual interactions into higher-order semantic units, i.e., protein complexes and functional modules. The chapters in this book cover computational methods that solve diverse tasks such as the prediction of functional protein-protein interactions; the alignment-based comparison of interaction networks by SANA; using the RaptorX-ComplexContact webserver to predict inter-protein residue-residue contacts; the docking of alternative confirmations of proteins participating in binary interactions and the visually-guided selection of a docking model using COZOID; the detection of novel functional units by KeyPathwayMiner and how PathClass can use such de novo pathways to classify breast cancer subtypes. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary hardware- and software, step-by-step, readily reproducible computational protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and comprehensive, Protein-Protein Interaction Networks: Methods and Protocols is a valuable resource for both novice and expert researchers who are interested in learning more about this evolving field.

This book illustrates the importance and significance of the molecular (physical and chemical) and evolutionary (gene fusion) principles of protein-protein and domain-domain interactions towards the understanding of cell division, disease mechanism and target definition in drug discovery. It describes the complex issues associated with this phenomenon using cutting edge advancement in Bioinformatics and Bioinformation Discovery. The chapters provide current information pertaining to the types of protein-protein complexes (homodimers, heterodimers, multimer complexes) in context with various specific and sensitive biological functions. The significance of such complex formation in human biology in the light of molecular evolution is also highlighted using several examples. The chapters also describe recent advancements on the molecular principles of protein-protein interaction with reference to evolution towards target identification in drug discovery. Finally, the book also elucidates a comprehensive yet a representative description of a large number of challenges associated with the molecular interaction of proteins.

The identification and mapping of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) is a major goal in systems biology. Experimental data are currently produced in large scale using a variety of high-throughput assays in yeast or mammalian systems. Analysis of these data using computational tools leads to the construction of large protein interaction networks, which help researchers identify novel protein functions. However, our current view of protein interaction networks is still limited and there is an active field of research trying to further develop this concept to include important processes: the topology of interactions and their changes in real time, the effects of competition for binding to the same protein region, PPI variation due to alternative splicing or post-translational modifications, etc. In particular, a clinically relevant topic for development of the concept of protein interactions networks is the consideration of mutant isoforms, which may be responsible for a pathological condition. Mutations in proteins may result in loss of normal interactions and appearance of novel abnormal interactions that may affect a protein’s function and biological cycle. This Research Topic presents novel findings and recent achievements in the field of protein interaction networks with a focus on disease. Authors describe methods for the identification and quantification of PPIs, the annotation and analysis of networks, considering PPIs and protein complexes formed by mutant proteins associated with pathological conditions or genetic diseases.

Complexes of physically interacting proteins constitute fundamental functional units that drive almost all biological processes within cells. A faithful reconstruction of the entire set of protein complexes (the "complexosome") is therefore important not only to understand the composition of complexes but also the higher level functional organization within cells. Advances over the last several years, particularly through the use of high-throughput proteomics techniques, have made it possible to map substantial fractions of protein interactions (the "interactomes") from model organisms including Arabidopsis thaliana (a flowering plant), Caenorhabditis elegans (a nematode), Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast). These interaction datasets have enabled systematic inquiry into the identification and study of protein complexes from organisms. Computational methods have played a significant role in this context, by contributing accurate, efficient, and exhaustive ways to analyze the enormous amounts of data. These methods have helped to compensate for some of the limitations in experimental datasets including the presence of biological and technical noise and the relative paucity of credible interactions. In this book, we systematically walk through computational methods devised to date (approximately between 2000 and 2016) for identifying protein complexes from the network of protein interactions (the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network). We present a detailed taxonomy of these methods, and comprehensively evaluate them for protein complex identification across a variety of scenarios including the absence of many true interactions and the presence of false-positive interactions (noise) in PPI networks. Based on this evaluation, we highlight challenges faced by the methods, for instance in identifying sparse, sub-, or small complexes and in discerning overlapping complexes, and reveal how a combination of strategies is necessary to accurately reconstruct the entire complexosome.