SMILE: A novel procedure for subcellular module identification with localization expansion

Abstract

We propose a novel procedure, Subcellular Module Identification with Localization Expansion (SMILE), to identify super modules that consist of several subcellular modules performing specific biological functions among cell compartments. These super modules identified by SMILE are more functionally diverse and have been verified to be more associated with known protein complexes and biological pathways compared with the modules identified from the global protein interaction networks in both the ComPPI and InWeb_InBioMap protein interaction datasets. Our results reveal that subcellular localization is a principal feature of functional modules and offers important guidance in detecting biologically meaningful results.