How do oncoprotein mutations rewire protein-protein interaction networks?

The acquisition of mutations that activate oncogenes or inactivate tumor suppressors is a primary feature of most cancers. Mutations that directly alter protein sequence and structure drive the development of tumors through aberrant expression and modification of proteins, in many cases directly impacting components of signal transduction pathways and cellular architecture. Cancer-associated mutations may have direct or indirect effects on proteins and their interactions and while the effects of mutations on signaling pathways have been widely studied, how mutations alter underlying protein-protein interaction networks is much less well understood. Systematic mapping of oncoprotein protein interactions using proteomics techniques as well as computational network analyses is revealing how oncoprotein mutations perturb protein-protein interaction networks and drive the cancer phenotype.