A graph modification approach for finding core-periphery structures in protein interaction networks

The core-periphery model for protein interaction (PPI) networks assumes that protein complexes in these networks consist of a dense core and a possibly sparse periphery that is adjacent to vertices in the core of the complex. In this work, we aim at uncovering a global core-periphery structure for a given PPI network. We propose two exact graph-theoretic formulations for this task, which aim to fit the input network to a hypothetical ground truth network by a minimum number of edge modifications. In one model each cluster has its own periphery, and in the other the periphery is shared. We first analyze both models from a theoretical point of view, showing their NP-hardness. Then, we devise efficient exact and heuristic algorithms for both models and finally perform an evaluation on subnetworks of the S. cerevisiae PPI network.