Integrated genome-scale prediction of detrimental mutations in transcription networks

A central challenge in genetics is to understand when and why mutations alter the phenotype of an organism. The consequences of gene inhibition have been systematically studied and can be predicted reasonably well across a genome. However, many sequence variants important for disease and evolution may alter gene regulation rather than gene function. The consequences of altering a regulatory interaction (or "edge") rather than a gene (or "node") in a network have not been as extensively studied. Here we use an integrative analysis and evolutionary conservation to identify features that predict when the loss of a regulatory interaction is detrimental in the extensively mapped transcription network of budding yeast. Properties such as the strength of an interaction, location and context in a promoter, regulator and target gene importance, and the potential for compensation (redundancy) associate to some extent with interaction importance. Combined, however, these features predict quite well whether the loss of a regulatory interaction is detrimental across many promoters and for many different transcription factors. Thus, despite the potential for regulatory diversity, common principles can be used to understand and predict when changes in regulation are most harmful to an organism.