Abstract
BackgroundThe elucidation of whole-cell regulatory, metabolic, interaction and other biological networks generates the need for a meaningful ranking of network elements. Centrality analysis ranks network elements according to their importance within the network structure and different centrality measures focus on different importance concepts. Central elements of biological networks have been found to be, for example, essential for viability.ResultsCentiBiN (Centralities in Biological Networks) is a tool for the computation and exploration of centralities in biological networks such as protein-protein interaction networks. It computes 17 different centralities for directed or undirected networks, ranging from local measures, that is, measures that only consider the direct neighbourhood of a network element, to global measures. CentiBiN supports the exploration of the centrality distribution by visualising central elements within the network and provides several layout mechanisms for the automatic generation of graphical representations of a network. It supports different input formats, especially for biological networks, and the export of the computed centralities to other tools.ConclusionCentiBiN helps systems biology researchers to identify crucial elements of biological networks. CentiBiN including a user guide and example data sets is available free of charge at . CentiBiN is available in two different versions: a Java Web Start application and an installable Windows application.
Highlights
The elucidation of whole-cell regulatory, metabolic, interaction and other biological networks generates the need for a meaningful ranking of network elements
CentiBiN is available in two different versions: a Java Web Start application and an installable Windows application
In the protein-protein interaction network of baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) it has been found that the centrality of a protein correlates with the essentiality of its gene, which was characterised by a high probability of a lethal effect observed upon knockout of this gene [6]
Summary
CentiBiN (Centralities in Biological Networks) is a tool for the computation and exploration of centralities in biological networks such as protein-protein interaction networks. It computes 17 different centralities for directed or undirected networks, ranging from local measures, that is, measures that only consider the direct neighbourhood of a network element, to global measures. CentiBiN supports the exploration of the centrality distribution by visualising central elements within the network and provides several layout mechanisms for the automatic generation of graphical representations of a network It supports different input formats, especially for biological networks, and the export of the computed centralities to other tools
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