Working Together: Using protein networks of bacterial species to compare essentiality, centrality, and conservation in Escherichia coli.

• Main Author: Wimble, Christopher
• Format: Others
• Published: VCU Scholars Compass 2015
• Subjects: Essentiality; Protein Conservation; Centrality; Graph Theory; Protein-Protein Interaction Network; PPI; Escherichia coli; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Baker’s Yeast; Network Biology; Aging; Replicative Aging; Target of Rapamycin; TOR; Interactomics; Bioinformatics
• Online Access: http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/3878; http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4913&context=etd

Proteins in Escherichia coli were compared in terms of essentiality, centrality, and conservation. The hypotheses of this study are: for proteins in Escherichia coli, (1) there is a positive, measureable correlation between protein conservation and essentiality, (2) there is a positive relationship between conservation and degree centrality, and (3) essentiality and centrality also have a positive correlation. The third hypothesis was supported by a moderate correlation, the first with a weak correlation, and the second hypotheis was not supported. When proteins that did not map to orthologous groups and proteins that had no interactions were removed, the relationship between essentality and conservation increased to a strong relationship. This was due to the effect of proteins that did not map to orthologus groups and suggests that protein orthology represented by clusters of orthologus groups does not accurately dipict protein conservation among the species studied.