The human metabolite - protein interactome reveals a global layer of cellular coordination
Metabolites are substrates, products, cofactors, and regulators, but protein-protein interaction networks do not represent their potential to organize proteins across conventional pathway boundaries. Using the LIGMAP virtual-screening algorithm, we mapped 308 human metabolite codes to pockets in monomers, dimer interfaces, and non-interface sites in dimers and represented attractive or repulsive…
Proteins interact with each other through metabolites, forming a vast network that connects seemingly unrelated cellular systems. To better understand this intricate system, researchers employed the LIGMAP algorithm to map the interactions of 308 human metabolites to specific pockets within proteins. The study found that this approach significantly improved the prediction of protein pathways, increasing the mean area under the precision-recall curve from 0.651 to 0.660 when combined with degree plus STRING data.
Interestingly, ancient features within the protein network were denser than non-ancient features, yet they covered more proteins and pathways overall. Even when focusing on features assigned to fewer than 2-100 proteins, the study retained 698 out of 1,691 strict non-enzyme reference edges, demonstrating the robustness of this metabolite-mediated architecture. Furthermore, experimentally established metabolite-dependent complexes confirmed the validity of this local mechanism, independent of LIGMAP.
In conclusion, the human metabolite-protein interactome reveals a global layer of cellular coordination, with the potential to organize proteins across conventional pathway boundaries. This network offers a comprehensive understanding of cellular processes and their connections, providing valuable insights into the complex interplay between metabolites and proteins.
Written by urgent.news from bioRxiv's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
