Analysis of correlations between protein complex and protein-protein interaction and mRNA expression

Abstract

Protein-protein interaction is a physical interaction of two proteins in living cells. In budding yeastSaccharomyces cerevisiae, large-scale protein-protein interaction data have been obtained through high-throughput yeast two-hybrid systems (Y2H) and protein complex purification techniques based on mass-spectrometry. Here, we collect 11855 interactions between total 2617 proteins. Through seriate genome-wide mRNA expression data, similarity between two genes could be measured. Protein complex data can also be obtained publicly and can be translated to pair relationship that any two proteins can only exist in the same complex or not. Analysis of protein complex data, protein-protein interaction data and mRNA expression data can elucidate correlations between them. The results show that proteins that have interactions or similar expression patterns have a higher possibility to be in the same protein complex than randomized selected proteins, and proteins which have interactions and similar expression patterns are even more possible to exist in the same protein complex. The work indicates that comprehensive integration and analysis of public large-scale bioinformatical data, such as protein complex data, protein-protein interaction data and mRNA expression data, may help to uncover their relationships and common biological information underlying these data. The strategies described here may help to integrate and analyze other functional genomic and proteomic data, such as gene expression profiling, protein-localization mapping and large-scale phenotypic data, both in yeast and in other organisms.