NetEPD: A network-based essential protein discovery platform

Proteins drive virtually all cellular-level processes. The proteins that are critical to cell proliferation and survival are defined as essential. These essential proteins are implicated in key metabolic and regulatory networks, and are important in the context of rational drug design efforts. The computational identification of the essential proteins benefits from the proliferation of publicly available protein interaction datasets. Scientists have developed several algorithms that use these interaction datasets to predict essential proteins. However, a comprehensive web platform that facilitates the analysis and prediction of essential proteins is missing. In this study, we design, implement, and release NetEPD: a network-based essential protein discovery platform. This resource integrates data on Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) networks, gene expression, subcellular localization, and a native set of essential proteins. It also computes a variety of node centrality measures, evaluates the predictions of essential proteins, and visualizes PPI networks. This comprehensive platform functions by implementing four activities, which include the collection of datasets, computation of centrality measures, evaluation, and visualization. The results produced by NetEPD are visualized on its website, and sent to a user-provided email, and they are available to download in a parsable format. This platform is freely available at http://bioinformatics.csu.edu.cn/netepd.