Local fractal dimension as an indicator of functional reorganization in molecular interaction networks

DIFFRACT detects functional reorganization in protein-protein interaction networks by tracking changes in local fractal dimension, and in RAVER1-depleted A549 cells it links network geometry to a 2.57-fold rise in ciliated cells.

• Why it matters: Protein abundance shifts only partially explain how perturbations reorganize cellular molecular organization, leaving a gap in how network structure changes relate to function.
• What they did: The framework uses quantitative proteomics to assign effective distances from molecular associations, then compares local fractal dimension across conditions using interaction neighborhoods from STRING, BioGRID, and IntAct in four organisms.
• The result: In A549 cells, RAVER1 depletion increases the proportion of ciliated cells 2.57-fold and lengthens cilia, and the network-geometry predictions are not captured by abundance-ranked gene set analysis.

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