title: Why do essential proteins tend to be clustered in the yeast interactome network?
abstract: Recently, the debate on the centrality-lethality rule is resolved by the "second-generation" high-throughput Y2H data from the yeast interactome network, which suggests no significant correlation between the degree of connectedness and essentiality of proteins. However, it is still not clear why essential proteins strongly tend to interact with each other. Previously, the concept of essential protein-protein interactions was proposed to explain the mechanism underlying the clustering of essential proteins. In this article we show that 67 to 75% of the excessive interactions between essential proteins (IBEPs) in the yeast interactome network can be attributed to interactions within protein complexes characterised by the same deletion phenotype for subunits within the complex. Furthermore, 20 to 78% of the excess in IBEPs are caused by the strongly modular structure of the network and by variation in protein essentiality among modules. Not only do proteins function as an interactive network in cellular processes, but furthermore, many proteins do not take part in the network alone, but integrate into protein complexes and many functionally related complexes integrate into modules. So, the local structure of protein complexes as both functional and structural modules are the main contributory factors in the clustering of essential proteins.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Population & Quantitative Genetics, Institute of Biostatistics, SKLGE, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Chenqi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Xiaohua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Guiying
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Leach
authors.forename: Shengjie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Kearsey
authors.forename: Z W
authors.initials: ZW
authors.lastname: Luo
mesh_terms: D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D025941:Protein Interaction Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D015003:Yeasts / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins