A quick guide to biomolecular network studies: Construction, analysis, applications, and resources

Over the past decade, a rapid increase in network data including signaling, transcription regulation, metabolic reaction, protein–protein interaction and genetic interaction has been observed. Many biology issues have been investigated by analyzing these diverse networks, providing new insights into biology. Networks also play an important role in disease studies including disease gene screening and clinical diagnosis. Large amounts of databases and software have been developed to facilitate the storage, exchange, integration, and analysis of network data and network analysis is becoming a routine procedure for biologists to infer biological information. In this review, several main aspects of network studies are discussed, including network construction, analysis, application, and resources.

► We discuss several main aspects of biomolecular network studies in this review.
► Networks are playing an important role to reveal the biological mechanisms.
► Networks also are playing an important role in diseases studies.
► Structure and dynamics are the two fundamental aspects of network analysis.
► Various databases and software tools are helpful to carry out network analysis.