Identifying the hub proteins from complicated membrane protein network systems.

The so-called "hub proteins" are those proteins in a protein-protein interaction network system that have remarkably higher interaction relations (or degrees) than the others. Therefore, the information of hub proteins can provide very useful insights for selecting or prioritizing targets during drug development. In this paper, by combining the multi-agent-based method with the graphical spectrum analysis and immune-genetic algorithm, a novel simulator for identifying the hub proteins from membrane protein interaction networks is proposed.

Multi-agent-based bio-network for systems biology: protein-protein interaction network as an example.

Recently, a collective effort from multiple research areas has been made to understand biological systems at the system level. This research requires the ability to simulate particular biological systems as cells, organs, organisms, and communities. In this paper, a novel bio-network simulation platform is proposed for system biology studies by combining agent approaches.