Understanding STRING: A Gateway to Protein Interaction Networks
STRING has established itself as an indispensable resource in molecular biology research by providing a unified view of protein interactions and functional associations. This database integrates information from various sources to create comprehensive protein interaction networks.
Core Features and Capabilities
- Data Integration Source Types:
- Experimental data
- Database imports
- Text mining results
- Genomic context predictions
- Co-expression patterns
- Phylogenetic profiles
- Interaction Types Coverage:
- Direct physical interactions
- Functional associations
- Regulatory relationships
- Metabolic pathway links
- Co-expression patterns
- Evolutionary relationships
Key Functionalities
- Network Visualization
- Interactive network maps
- Confidence scoring
- Edge type indication
- Node annotation
- Clustering analysis
- Network statistics
- Analysis Tools
- Enrichment analysis
- Network expansion
- Protein domain analysis
- Tissue expression
- Disease association
- Drug-target relationships
Research Applications
- Systems Biology
- Network analysis
- Pathway mapping
- Function prediction
- Drug discovery
- Disease mechanisms
- Experimental Design
- Target identification
- Hypothesis generation
- Experimental validation
- Interaction prediction
- Pathway analysis
- Clinical Research
- Disease networks
- Drug targets
- Biomarker discovery
- Pathway analysis
- Mechanism studies