Complex tree: the basic framework of protein-protein interaction networks

In living cells, proteins are dynamically connec ted through biochemical reactions, so its functi onal features are properly encoded into protein protein interaction networks (PINs). Up to pres ent, many efforts have been devoted to exploring the basic feature of PINs. However, it is still a challenging problem to explore a universal pr operty of PINs. Here we employed the complex networks theory to analyze the proteinprotein interactions from Database of Interacting Prot ein. Complex tree: the unique framework of PINs was revealed by three topological properties of the giant component of PINs (GCOP), including rightskewed degree distributions, relatively sm all clustering coefficients and short characteristic path lengths. Furthermore, we proposed a no nlinearly growth model: complex tree model to reflect the tree framework, the simulation resu lts of this model showed that GCOPs were well represented by our model, which could be help ful for understanding the treestructure: basic framework of PINs. Source code and binaries freely available for download at http://cic.scu. edu.cn/bioinformatics/STM/STM_code.rar.