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Science 5 March 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5663, pp. 1538 - 1542
DOI: 10.1126/science.1089167
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Reports

Superfamilies of Evolved and Designed Networks

Ron Milo, Shalev Itzkovitz, Nadav Kashtan, Reuven Levitt, Shai Shen-Orr, Inbal Ayzenshtat, Michal Sheffer, Uri Alon*

Complex biological, technological, and sociological networks can be of very different sizes and connectivities, making it difficult to compare their structures. Here we present an approach to systematically study similarity in the local structure of networks, based on the significance profile (SP) of small subgraphs in the network compared to randomized networks. We find several superfamilies of previously unrelated networks with very similar SPs. One superfamily, including transcription networks of microorganisms, represents "rate-limited" information-processing networks strongly constrained by the response time of their components. A distinct superfamily includes protein signaling, developmental genetic networks, and neuronal wiring. Additional superfamilies include power grids, protein-structure networks and geometric networks, World Wide Web links and social networks, and word-adjacency networks from different languages.

Departments of Molecular Cell Biology, Physics of Complex Systems, and Computer Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. E-mail: urialon{at}weizmann.ac.il

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