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Updated: Jul 5, 2026
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Published on: November 17, 2019
Estimating the size of the human interactome
Michael P H Stumpf1, Thomas Thorne, Eric de Silva
1Division of Molecular Biosciences, Imperial College London, Wolfson Building, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom. m.stumpf@imperial.ac.uk
Summary
The number of genes doesn't explain organism complexity. Instead, the size of protein interaction networks, particularly in humans, better reflects biological complexity and is significantly larger than in other species.
Area of Science:
- Systems biology
- Bioinformatics
- Genomics
Background:
- The human genome project revealed gene count doesn't correlate with organism complexity.
- Existing metrics fail to explain the vast differences in biological complexity across species.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between protein interaction network size and biological complexity.
- To develop a robust method for estimating the total size of protein interaction networks.
Main Methods:
- Developed a statistical procedure to estimate whole protein interaction network size from subnet data.
- Applied the method to analyze protein interaction data from various eukaryotic organisms.
Main Results:
- Protein interaction network size strongly correlates with perceived biological complexity.
- Estimated the human protein interaction network to contain approximately 650,000 interactions.
- The human interactome is significantly larger than those of Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans.
Conclusions:
- Protein interaction network size is a better indicator of biological complexity than gene count.
- The human interactome is vastly larger than previously estimated, highlighting complex regulatory mechanisms.
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