ToppNet gene prioritization is based on protein–protein interaction network (PPIN) analyses. Based on the observation that biological networks share many properties with Web and social networks (28), ToppNet uses extended versions of three algorithms from White and Smyth (31)—PageRank with Priors, HITS with Priors and K-step Markov—to prioritize disease candidate genes by estimating their relative importance in the PPIN to the disease-related genes. For more details about the protein interaction datasets used, algorithmic details and validation, see our recently published study (27).
