Essential Proteins Discovery Methods based on the Protein-Protein Interaction Networks

Essential proteins are closely related to biological survival or reproduction and have important application value in respect of the location of disease genes, disease diagnosis and treatment, drug design. In order to discovery essential proteins, the researchers have proposed experimental approaches, but these methods require laborious and time consuming. With the development of high-throughput sequencing techniques, plenty of computational methods based on the Protein-Protein Interaction Networks have been put forward to identify essential proteins. In this study, we firstly have introduced the basic characteristics and data set of essential proteins and essential proteins discovery method in the Protein-Protein Interaction Networks. Following that, we have analyzed and compared the difference of various existing strategies and then have pointed out the merits and demerits of them in detailed. At last, we give several important problems and development trend about essential proteins discovery methods, which provide a strong foundation for the further research.