Fig. 6

a Plot showing the distribution of shortest path lengths of a host gene-microbe network under FF and BF conditions. The left skewed distribution of BF networks with smaller diameter (14) shows the small-world properties of the network and a higher robustness (against perturbation) compared to the right skewed FF network with a diameter of 20. b The plot represents the number of nodes that can be reached (Y-axis) after traversing through certain path lengths, (here 1, 2, and 3 along X-axis). The node type referred here are the “DE genes” (differentially expressed genes) from gene expression data, “Species” are the microbes, and “Transient” nodes are the genes mined from literature that were found to share relationship with microbial species. The corresponding networks are available as a network file in Additional file 1 and Additional file 3 (can be opened in cytoscape) and as figures in Additional file 1