Study of biological networks using graph theory

Saudi J Biol Sci. 2018 Sep;25(6):1212-1219. doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2017.11.022. Epub 2017 Nov 14.

Abstract

As an effective modeling, analysis and computational tool, graph theory is widely used in biological mathematics to deal with various biology problems. In the field of microbiology, graph can express the molecular structure, where cell, gene or protein can be denoted as a vertex, and the connect element can be regarded as an edge. In this way, the biological activity characteristic can be measured via topological index computing in the corresponding graphs. In our article, we mainly study the biology features of biological networks in terms of eccentric topological indices computation. By means of graph structure analysis and distance calculating, the exact expression of several important eccentric related indices of hypertree network and X-tree are determined. The conclusions we get in this paper illustrate that the bioengineering has the promising application prospects.

Keywords: Biological mathematics; Biological networks; DNA sequence; Topological index.