From proteomic data to networks: statistics and methods reveal ciliary protein interaction landscape

Abstract

Objective: The assembly of protein interaction networks (PIN) is an important step to understand the biological function of proteins. Affinity purification coupled to mass spectrometry (AP-MS) has become the technique of choice for the assembly and analysis of PINs. However, most current studies, especially in human cells, are focused on specific biological systems (e.g. the cilium) resulting in datasets of a small to intermediate scale. In such cases, methods that developed for genome-scale datasets are of limited utility. We propose here a framework that is specifically designed for the analysis of incomplete proteomic data focused on ciliary function and ciliopathies.