Comment in:

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008 Jul 22;105(29):9849-50.

The implications of human metabolic network topology for disease comorbidity.

Center for Complex Network Research and Department of Physics, Biology, and Computer Science, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

Most diseases are the consequence of the breakdown of cellular processes, but the relationships among genetic/epigenetic defects, the molecular interaction networks underlying them, and the disease phenotypes remain poorly understood. To gain insights into such relationships, here we constructed a bipartite human disease association network in which nodes are diseases and two diseases are linked if mutated enzymes associated with them catalyze adjacent metabolic reactions. We find that connected disease pairs display higher correlated reaction flux rate, corresponding enzyme-encoding gene coexpression, and higher comorbidity than those that have no metabolic link between them. Furthermore, the more connected a disease is to other diseases, the higher is its prevalence and associated mortality rate. The network topology-based approach also helps to uncover potential mechanisms that contribute to their shared pathophysiology. Thus, the structure and modeled function of the human metabolic network can provide insights into disease comorbidity, with potentially important consequences for disease diagnosis and prevention.

PMID: 18599447 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

PMCID: PMC2481357