TITLE:

Topological network alignment uncovers biological function and phylogeny

DATE:

Friday, Sept. 13th, 2013

TIME:

3:30 PM

LOCATION:

GMCS 214

SPEAKER:

Wayne Hayes. Associate Professor of Computer Science. University of California, Irvine

ABSTRACT:

Sequence comparison and alignment has had an enormous impact

on our understanding of evolution, biology and disease. Comparison and

alignment of biological networks will probably have a similar impact.

Existing network alignments use information external to the networks,

such as sequence, because no good algorithm for purely topological

alignment has yet been devised. In this paper, we present a novel

algorithm based solely on network topology, that can be used to align

any two networks. We apply it to biological networks to produce by far

the most complete topological alignments of biological networks to

date. We demonstrate that both species phylogeny and detailed

biological function of individual proteins can be extracted from our

alignments. Topology-based alignments have the potential to provide a

completely new, independent source of phylogenetic information. Our

alignment of the protein–protein interaction networks of two very

different species—yeast and human—indicate that even distant species

share a surprising amount of network topology, suggesting broad

similarities in internal cellular wiring across all life on Earth.

HOST:

Dr. Jose Castillo

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