Networking in Human Tissues and Genes
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v47/n6/full/ng.3259.html
The understanding of human biology and how cells work and interact has been greatly advanced by the development of better technology and by the use of networks in mapping the human tissue interaction. By furthering the understanding of human biology and how functions are linked, researchers
can better develop new techniques for improving human health. This is where networks are useful: by using a network, the impact of changing one node can quickly be predicted and the treatment redesigned if necessary, saving time and resources. In this article, the researchers worked
on linking tissues and their original DNA sequences to achieve this goal.
In creating their tissue networks, the researchers used edge thickness and colour to denote edge strength. As an example, in one of their diagrams, they represented protein encoding genes as nodes and the relationship(s) between the genes as stronger/weaker edges. Thus how a whole protein is
built and the role of the protein in the tissue network being studied can be examined using this model. This further allows other researchers to study the multiple tissue networks a gene can appear in and its significance
in it. The creators of this method of studying tissue networks also used positive and negative edges to denote how genes they worked together, positive if they were coexpressed in a tissue and were both tissue specific,
negative is one was tissue specific and the other was ubiquitous. This then allowed the creators to classify edges and use this information in the networks they built as another piece of information for understanding tissue/DNA interactions and relations–which interactions were stronger in which situations, and vice versa, aiding in the development of future medical techniques.