In silico analysis of hypoxia-responsive protein network
Student name: Ms Divya Tiwari
Guide: Dr Pallavi Somvanshi
Year of completion: 2014
Host Organisation: DIPAS, DRDO
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Pankaj Khurana
Abstract: Hypoxia is a pathological condition as a low oxygen concentration in the environment. The
causes of the lower oxygen condition are many such as environmental, higher altitude, deep
sea diving, prenatal birth etc. Emerging tools of network medicine offer a platform to
explore a complex disease at system level. In this study, we aimed to identify the key proteins
and the biological regulatory pathways involving in hypoxic condition and further exploring
the molecular connectivity between these pathways by the topological analysis of the Proteinprotein
interaction (PPI) network. The extended network including one giant network
consisted of 603 nodes connected via 4264 edges and one separated small backbone network.
24 proteins with high Betweenness centrality and large degree have been identified. The
giant and backbone network derived from high BC proteins presents a clear and visual
overview which shows all important regulatory pathways. Finally, the robustness of the
network and accuracy of backbone were validated by test networks. This study is the first
systematic network and pathway analysis of candidate proteins in hypoxia, providing
abundant important information about protein-protein interaction and regulation in a major
pathological condition. The results suggest potential functional components underlying the
molecular mechanisms of hypoxia and, thus, facilitate generation of novel hypotheses in this
condition. The systems biology based strategy in this study can be applied to many other
complex diseases.
Keywords; hypoxia, protein network, betweenness centrality, degree
