A hybrid graph-theoretic method for mining overlapping functional modules in large sparse protein interaction networks.

Modular architecture, which encompasses groups of genes/proteins involved in elementary biological functional units, is a basic form of the organisation of interacting proteins. Here, we propose a method that combines the Line Graph Transformation (LGT) and clique percolation-clustering algorithm to detect network modules, which may overlap each other in large sparse PPI networks. The resulting modules by the present method show a high coverage among yeast, fly, and worm PPI networks, respectively. Our analysis of the yeast PPI network suggests that most of these modules have well-biological significance in context of protein localisation, function annotation, and protein complexes.