Protein-protein Interaction Networks of E. coli and S. cerevisiae are similar

Only recently novel high-throughput binary interaction data in E. coli became available that allowed us to compare experimentally obtained protein-protein interaction networks of prokaryotes and eukaryotes (i.e. E. coli and S. cerevisiae). Utilizing binary-Y2H, co-complex and binary literature curated interaction sets in both organisms we found that characteristics of interaction sets that were determined with the same experimental methods were strikingly similar. While essentiality is frequently considered a question of a protein's increasing number of interactions, we found that binary-Y2H interactions failed to show such a trend in both organisms. Furthermore, essential genes are enriched in protein complexes in both organisms. In turn, binary-Y2H interactions hold more bottleneck interactions than co-complex interactions while both binary-Y2H and co-complex interactions are strongly enriched among co-regulated proteins and transcription factors. We discuss if such similarities are a consequence of the underlying methodology or rather reflect truly different biological patterns.