An entropic characterization of protein interaction networks and cellular robustness.

ABSTRACT: The structure of molecular networks is believed to determine important aspects of their cellular function, such as the organismal resilience against random perturbations. Ultimately, however, cellular behaviour is determined by the dynamical processes, which are constrained by network topology. The present work is based on a fundamental relation from dynamical systems theory, which states that the macroscopic resilience of a steady state is correlated with the uncertainty in the underlying microscopic processes, a property that can be measured by entropy. Here, we use recent network data from large-scale protein interaction screens to characterize the diversity of possible pathways in terms of network entropy. This measure has its origin in statistical mechanics and amounts to a global cha

SUBMITTER: Manke T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1885358 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature