Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are complex, involving numerous biological entities from genes and small molecules to organ function. Placing these entities in networks where the functional relationships among the constituents are drawn can aid in our understanding of disease onset, progression and prevention. While networks, or interactomes, are often classified by a general term, say lipids or inflammation, it is a more encompassing class of network that is more informative in showing connections among the active entities and allowing better hypotheses of novel CVD players to be formulated. A range of networks will be presented whereby the potential to bring new objects into the CVD milieu will be exemplified.
Keywords: cardiovascular disease; genetics; interactions; network; risk.