On Network Similarities and Their Applications

Network representations of biological systems have provided a more in-depth understanding of cellular and molecular interaction mechanisms. The comparison of complex biological networks is an ongoing area of research. It is necessary to identify similarity measures which are particularly suited for biological network analysis. We focus our survey on network similarity measures in the context of directed, weighted, and structurally similar biological networks. We summarize the underlying mechanisms and features exploited by such measures, which help to bring out the differences or similarities between networks. We also provide a brief overview of studies which have been performed using these measures on different biological network data. Finally, we show performance results obtained by applying the measures on tumor metabolic networks.