Figure 2

Analysis of protein connectivity (degree) in the human interactome as a measure of protein function. Protein connectivity was measured from a model of the human interactome (Biogrid build 3.1.87) and plotted against the frequency of proteins of specific degree; a right shift indicates an increase in connectivity and implies increased functional relevance [15, 16]. A) Comparison of proteins with age related differences in expression [green marker n = 688] with genes associated with cancer (Cancer Gene Census database [25]) [red marker n = 437], “essential” genes derived from human orthologs of mouse lethal genes [26] [brown marker n = 1741] and control genes [16] [blue marker n = 12655]. All data sets are significantly different p < 0.0001, Wilcoxon test. B) Comparison of the connectivity within the human interactome proteins associated with gene expression changes during human growth; infancy, blue marker n = 272; Childhood/Puberty, orange marker n = 155; Adult/Final height, red marker n = 108. All data sets are significantly different p < 0.0001, Wilcoxon test.