Protein synthesis profiling in the developing brain: a graph theoretic clustering approach.
Mapping regional brain development in terms of protein synthesis (PS) activity yields insight on specific spatio-temporal ontogenetic patterns. The biosynthetic activity of an individual brain nucleus is represented as a time-series object, and clustering of time-series contributes to the problem of inducing indicative patterns of brain developmental events and forming respective PS chronological maps. Clustering analysis of PS chronological maps, in comparison with epigenetic influences of alpha2 adrenoceptors treatment, reveals relationships between distantly located brain structures. Clustering is performed with a novel graph theoretic clustering approach (GTC). The approach is based on the weighted graph arrangement of the input objects and the iterative partitioning of the corresponding minimum spanning tree. The final result is a hierarchical clustering-tree organization of the input objects. Application of GTC on the PS patterns in developing brain revealed five main clusters that correspond to respective brain development indicative profiles. The induced profiles confirm experimental findings, and provide evidence for further experimental studies.