nätverksalignment

Network alignment, or nätverksalignment in Swedish, refers to the process of comparing and matching nodes between two or more biological networks. These networks often represent protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks, gene regulatory networks, or metabolic networks. The primary goal is to identify conserved pathways, functional modules, or evolutionary relationships by finding similar network structures or node similarities across different species or conditions.

There are several computational approaches to network alignment. These can be broadly categorized into global alignment, which attempts to align the entire network, and local alignment, which focuses on finding the best matching subgraphs. Methods often utilize graph theory principles, employing algorithms that consider node attributes, edge weights, and topological properties to score potential alignments. Evolutionary conservation is a key motivation, as conserved biological functions are often reflected in conserved network structures.

Applications of network alignment are diverse. It can aid in predicting the function of uncharacterized proteins by transferring functional annotations from aligned nodes in well-studied networks. It also plays a role in identifying disease-related genes or pathways by comparing healthy and diseased networks, or by looking for conserved disease mechanisms across different organisms. Furthermore, network alignment contributes to understanding evolutionary processes and the divergence of biological systems over time. Challenges in the field include dealing with incomplete or noisy network data, computational complexity, and defining appropriate similarity measures for different types of biological networks.