STRINGdb "Expected Interactions"?

Question

[Kind Katydid]

For example, I put in a list of genes, and above the network plot I get these:

proteins:118

interactions: 816

expected interactions: 204 (p-value 0)

Does the "expected interactions" value come from IF you gave it a completely random, uncorrelated set of genes? Is there any further insight from these metrics?

Answer 1

[Mensur Dlakic]

Expected interactions are calculated for a set of protein of a given size. See this paper, specifically the STATISTICAL ENRICHMENT ANALYSIS section.

In your case the network members are extremely well-connected, and from the p-value that is unlikely to be by chance.