Research article

Functional clustering of yeast proteins from the protein-protein interaction network

Taner Z Sen^1,2 , Andrzej Kloczkowski² and Robert L Jernigan^1,2

¹L.H. Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics, Iowa State University Ames, IA 50011, USA

²Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA

author email corresponding author email

BMC Bioinformatics 2006, 7:355doi:10.1186/1471-2105-7-355

Published:	24 July 2006

Abstract

Background

The abundant data available for protein interaction networks have not yet been fully understood. New types of analyses are needed to reveal organizational principles of these networks to investigate the details of functional and regulatory clusters of proteins.

Results

In the present work, individual clusters identified by an eigenmode analysis of the connectivity matrix of the protein-protein interaction network in yeast are investigated for possible functional relationships among the members of the cluster. With our functional clustering we have successfully predicted several new protein-protein interactions that indeed have been reported recently.

Conclusion

Eigenmode analysis of the entire connectivity matrix yields both a global and a detailed view of the network. We have shown that the eigenmode clustering not only is guided by the number of proteins with which each protein interacts, but also leads to functional clustering that can be applied to predict new protein interactions.