The Genomic Landscape of Position Effects on Protein Expression Level and Noise in Yeast

Position effect, the influence of the chromosomal location of a gene on its activity, is a fundamental property of the genome. By placing a GFP gene cassette at 482 different locations across all chromosomes in budding yeast, we quantified the position effects on protein expression level and noise at the genomic scale. The position effects are significant, altering the mean protein expression level by up to 15 times and expression noise by up to 20 times. DNA replication timing, 3D chromosomal conformation, and several histone modifications are major covariates of position effects. Essential genes are enriched in genomic regions with inherently low expression noise, supporting the hypothesis that chromosomal clustering of essential genes results from selection against their expressional stochasticity. Position effects exhibit significant interactions with promoters. Together, our results suggest that position effects have shaped the evolution of chromosome organization and should inform future genome engineering efforts.