Fig. 2. STRING-based protein interaction networks from interstitial cells of Cajal-expressed proteins associated with the Gene Ontology terms identified in
Table 3: “regulation of muscle contraction” (A) and “positive regulation of ion transport” (B). Each node represents a protein. Edges represent protein-protein interactions: light blue = known interaction, from curated database; purple = known interaction, experimentally determined; red = predicted interaction, gene fusions; light green = other interaction, text-mining; black = other interaction, co-expression; blue = other interaction, protein homology. Some proteins are expressed in ICC: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) encodes dystrophin protein, which showed modified ICC morphology and gastric dysmotility when knocked out in mice
48,49; caveolin 1 (CAV1) is a key scaffolding protein of caveolae on cell membranes essential for normal calcium handling in pacing and contractions in the mouse small intestine;
38,50,51 and myosin light chain kinase (MYLK) is a kinase protein, important in gastric smooth muscle contraction.
14,31
