Emerging applications of network and pathway analysis in drug discovery and development

Abstract

Molecular pathway and network analysis tools that have been developed over the past decade provide an emerging systems-wide perspective for the analysis of gene expression, proteomic and metabolomic data. These tools link relevant extracted literature information available from structured knowledge bases with user-friendly features that enable analysis and interpretation of the global impact of a disease stage or drug treatment. Pathway and network analysis tools have been found to have broad applicability within the biomedical community, most specifically in cancer research to elucidate mechanisms of tumor progression and for biomarker discovery, and more recently in the area of drug discovery and development. This review discusses recent applications of pathway and network analysis for predictive in silico modeling in the area of drug discovery and development, including theoretical and practical advances and the implications for their application.