Message-passing algorithms for the prediction of protein domain interactions from protein–protein interaction data

• Published in: Bioinformatics Vol. 24; no. 18; pp. 2064 - 2070
• Main Authors: Iqbal, Mudassar, Freitas, Alex A., Johnson, Colin G., Vergassola, Massimo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 15.09.2008; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Amino Acid Motifs; Binding Sites; Biological and medical sciences; Databases, Protein; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Mathematics in biology. Statistical analysis. Models. Metrology. Data processing in biology (general aspects); Protein Interaction Domains and Motifs; Protein Interaction Mapping - methods; Saccharomyces cerevisiae - genetics; Molecular interaction; Algorithm; Bioinformatics; Protein; Prediction
• ISSN: 1367-4803; 1460-2059; 1367-4811
• DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btn366

Motivation: Cellular processes often hinge upon specific interactions among proteins, and knowledge of these processes at a system level constitutes a major goal of proteomics. In particular, a greater understanding of protein–protein interactions can be gained via a more detailed investigation of the protein domain interactions that mediate the interactions of proteins. Existing high-throughput experimental techniques assay protein–protein interactions, yet they do not provide any direct information on the interactions among domains. Inferences concerning the latter can be made by analysis of the domain composition of a set of proteins and their interaction map. This inference problem is non-trivial, however, due to the high level of noise generally present in experimental data concerning protein–protein interactions. This noise leads to contradictions, i.e. the impossibility of having a pattern of domain interactions compatible with the protein–protein interaction map. Results: We formulate the problem of prediction of protein domain interactions in a form that lends itself to the application of belief propagation, a powerful algorithm for such inference problems, which is based on message passing. The input to our algorithm is an interaction map among a set of proteins, and a set of domain assignments to the relevant proteins. The output is a list of probabilities of interaction between each pair of domains. Our method is able to effectively cope with errors in the protein–protein interaction dataset and systematically resolve contradictions. We applied the method to a dataset concerning the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and tested the quality of our predictions by cross-validation on this dataset, by comparison with existing computational predictions, and finally with experimentally available domain interactions. Results compare favourably to those by existing algorithms. Availability: A C language implementation of the algorithm is available upon request. Contact: mi26@kent.ac.uk