Banca de DEFESA: FÁBIO HENRIQUE FERREIRA SILVA

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : FÁBIO HENRIQUE FERREIRA SILVA
DATE: 28/08/2026
TIME: 09:00
LOCAL: ICe
TITLE:

Analysis of tissue-specific protein-protein interaction networks

KEY WORDS:

Network, interactome, graph, proteins, tissue-specific.

PAGES: 61
BIG AREA: Ciências Biológicas
AREA: Biologia Geral
SUMMARY:

Protein-protein interaction networks represent a complex mechanism of associations between proteins within a cell, serving as fundamental models for understanding cellular processes and disease etiology. These interactions are crucial for various biological activities, including signal transduction, cellular metabolism, and immune responses. However, the canonical interactome, by consolidating interactions irrespective of tissue context, incorporates associations based on global evidence that do not always co-occur within the same microenvironment, thus introducing biological noise and potential false positives. Recognizing that protein expression is not uniform, this study proposes the mapping and analysis of tissue-specific PPI sub-networks across 52 tissues, aiming to enhance the resolution and accuracy of interaction analyses. The methodology consisted of integrating expression data from 52 tissues obtained from the GTEx project with the human canonical interactome (19,488 proteins and 1,858,944 interactions with a combined score ≥ 400) from the STRING DB database. The workflow encompassed data collection and preprocessing, including the removal of duplicates and non-protein-coding genes, the association of interactions to tissues, the calculation of network metrics (degree, diameter, betweenness centrality), and the analysis of these results. To delineate the sub-networks, a statistical analysis of gene expression levels in each tissue was employed, based on linear regression and comparison of marginal means, with genes presenting statistically significant results in each tissue being considered expressed. The findings reveal a significant difference between the canonical network and the tissue sub-networks, with the canonical interactome containing a substantially higher number of proteins and interactions. The delineation of tissue-specific interaction sub-networks proves to be a fundamental strategy to focus attention on proteins effectively present in the tissue context, thereby increasing the accuracy of results and providing a higher-resolution view of cellular biology.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Externo à Instituição - CLOVIS FERREIRA DOS REIS
Interno - 3884005 - PATRICK CESAR ALVES TERREMATTE
Externa à Instituição - RAFAELLA SOUSA FERRAZ
Presidente - 1507794 - RODRIGO JULIANI SIQUEIRA DALMOLIN