Exploring the Enzyme Neighbourhood to interpret gene expression data

Abstract

Post-genomic data analysis represents a new challenge to link and interpret the vast amount of raw data obtained with transcriptomic or proteomic techniques in the context of metabolic pathways. We propose a new strategy with the help of a metabolic network graph to extend PathExpress, a web-based tool to interpret gene expression data, without being restricted to predefined pathways. We defined the Enzyme Neighbourhood as groups of linked enzymes, corresponding to a sub-network, to explore the metabolic network in order to identify the most relevant sub-networks affected in gene expression experiments.