Construction and Analysis of Human Diseases and Metabolites Network

The relationship between aberrant metabolism and the initiation and progression of diseases has gained considerable attention in recent years. To gain insights into the global relationship between diseases and metabolites, here we constructed a human diseases-metabolites network (HDMN). Through analyses based on network biology, the metabolites associated with the same disorder tend to participate in the same metabolic pathway or cascade. In addition, the shortest distance between disease-related metabolites was shorter than that of all metabolites in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) metabolic network. Both disease and metabolite nodes in the HDMN displayed slight clustering phenomenon, resulting in functional modules. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation was observed between the degree of metabolites and the proportion of disease-related metabolites in the KEGG metabolic network. We also found that the average degree of disease metabolites is larger than that of all metabolites. Depicting a comprehensive characteristic of HDMN could provide great insights into understanding the global relationship between disease and metabolites.