What is "interactome"

n. (context biology English) All the interactions between biological entities in cells and organisms considered as a whole.

In molecular biology, an interactome is the whole set of molecular interactions in a particular cell. The term specifically refers to physical interactions among molecules (such as those among proteins, also known as protein–protein interactions) but can also describe sets of indirect interactions among genes ( genetic interactions). Mathematically, interactomes are generally displayed as graphs.

The word "interactome" was originally coined in 1999 by a group of French scientists headed by Bernard Jacq. Though interactomes may be described as biological networks, they should not be confused with other networks such as neural networks or food webs.