Articles

Inferring network mechanisms: The Drosophila melanogaster protein interaction network

Middendorf, Manuel; Ziv, Etay; Wiggins, Chris H.

Naturally occurring networks exhibit quantitative features revealing underlying growth mechanisms. Numerous network mechanisms have recently been proposed to reproduce specific properties such as degree distributions or clustering coefficients. We present a method for inferring the mechanism most accurately capturing a given network topology, exploiting discriminative tools from machine learning. The Drosophila melanogaster protein network is confidently and robustly (to noise and training data subsampling) classified as a duplication–mutation–complementation network over preferential attachment, small-world, and a duplication–mutation mechanism without complementation. Systematic classification, rather than statistical study of specific properties, provides a discriminative approach to understand the design of complex networks.

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Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0409515102

More About This Work

Academic Units
Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published Here
September 20, 2014