Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33741907›Full record

ArticleNature communications2021

Identification of disease treatment mechanisms through the multiscale interactome.

Camilo Ruiz, Marinka Zitnik, Jure Leskovec

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 100 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
100citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

100 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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  10. Mechanistic Insights into the Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in the Diagnosis and Management of Multiple Sclerosis.Pathophysiology : the official journal of the International Society for Pathophysiology · 2026
    Review
  11. Article
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  13. Article
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  17. Article
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  19. Using Biological Networks to Guide Biomedical Prediction.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026
    Article
  20. Review

40 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Camilo RuizComputer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-8395-2853
Marinka ZitnikBiomedical Informatics Department, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
Jure LeskovecComputer Science Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. jure@cs.stanford.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-5411-923X

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Most diseases disrupt multiple proteins, and drugs treat such diseases by restoring the functions of the disrupted proteins. How drugs restore these functions, however, is often unknown as a drug's therapeutic effects are not limited to the proteins that the drug directly targets. Here, we develop the multiscale interactome, a powerful approach to explain disease treatment. We integrate disease-perturbed proteins, drug targets, and biological functions into a multiscale interactome network. We then develop a random walk-based method that captures how drug effects propagate through a hierarchy of biological functions and physical protein-protein interactions. On three key pharmacological tasks, the multiscale interactome predicts drug-disease treatment, identifies proteins and biological functions related to treatment, and predicts genes that alter a treatment's efficacy and adverse reactions. Our results indicate that physical interactions between proteins alone cannot explain treatment since many drugs treat diseases by affecting the biological functions disrupted by the disease rather than directly targeting disease proteins or their regulators. We provide a general framework for explaining treatment, even when drugs seem unrelated to the diseases they are recommended for.

Indexed as

AlgorithmsAnimalsComputational BiologyDrug TherapyHumansModels, TheoreticalMultiprotein ComplexesPharmaceutical PreparationsProtein BindingProtein Interaction MappingProtein Interaction MapsProteinsMultiprotein ComplexesPharmaceutical PreparationsProteins

Identifiers

PMID33741907
PMCPMC7979814

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.