Mapping Analysis

Proteoform networks enable more specific reaction and pathway mapping

Proteoform networks can reduce the number of candidate reactions an pathways for a set of input entities.

Proteoform networks contain fewer hub nodes with smaller degree

Interaction networks are composed of a set of nodes and links. For protein interaction networks, the nodes represent an protein accessions and links are interactions among two proteins. For the proteoforms interaction networks, there is one node for each annotated proteoform of a protein. Since isoform variants and PTMs change the structure and function of the protein the proteoforms may link to only a subset of the interacting partners of the generic protein. This reduces the number of links each proteoform node has.

Proteoforms capture more details of the state and function of the protein, by spliting a single protein node into multiple proteoform nodes. Each has a share of the original degree of the protein node. Then, as a rule, the degree of each proteoform is less or equal to the original protein node. As more proteoforms are identified, the degree of the vertices can potentially decrease. The direct consequense of nodes with smaller degree is the decrease in number of hub nodes.

Overall, the biological networks have a share of nodes with high degree connecting to plenty of other entities, creating a small world effect. The use of proteoforms results beneficial for the network analysis providing fewer hub nodes and reducing the "small world" effect in the network. It implies more meaningful connections among the nodes and not generic nodes connecting numerous other nodes.

Proteoform networks enable more specific reaction and pathway mapping

Proteoform networks can reduce the number of candidate reactions an pathways for a set of input entities.