title: Conserved rules govern genetic interaction degree across species.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Synthetic genetic interactions have recently been mapped on a genome scale in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, providing a functional view of the central processes of eukaryotic life. Currently, comprehensive genetic interaction networks have not been determined for other species, and we therefore sought to model conserved aspects of genetic interaction networks in order to enable the transfer of knowledge between species.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using a combination of physiological and evolutionary properties of genes, we built models that successfully predicted the genetic interaction degree of S. cerevisiae genes. Importantly, a model trained on S. cerevisiae gene features and degree also accurately predicted interaction degree in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, suggesting that many of the predictive relationships discovered in S. cerevisiae also hold in this evolutionarily distant yeast. In both species, high single mutant fitness defect, protein disorder, pleiotropy, protein-protein interaction network degree, and low expression variation were significantly predictive of genetic interaction degree. A comparison of the predicted genetic interaction degrees of S. pombe genes to the degrees of S. cerevisiae orthologs revealed functional rewiring of specific biological processes that distinguish these two species. Finally, predicted differences in genetic interaction degree were independently supported by differences in co-expression relationships of the two species.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings show that there are common relationships between gene properties and genetic interaction network topology in two evolutionarily distant species. This conservation allows use of the extensively mapped S. cerevisiae genetic interaction network as an orthology-independent reference to guide the study of more complex species.
authors: Elizabeth N
authors: EN
authors: Koch
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Costanzo
authors: Jeremy
authors: J
authors: Bellay
authors: Raamesh
authors: R
authors: Deshpande
authors: Kate
authors: K
authors: Chatfield-Reed
authors: Gordon
authors: G
authors: Chua
authors: Gennaro
authors: G
authors: D'Urso
authors: Brenda J
authors: BJ
authors: Andrews
authors: Charles
authors: C
authors: Boone
authors: Chad L
authors: CL
authors: Myers
mesh_terms: D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D005800:Genes, Fungal; D056084:Genetic Fitness; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics*; D012568:Schizosaccharomyces / Q000235:genetics*; D013045:Species Specificity