How much expression divergence after yeast gene duplication could be explained by regulatory motif evolution?

Abstract

We used the yeast genome sequences of gene families, microarray profiles and regulatory motif data to test the current wisdom that there is a strong correlation between regulatory motif structure and gene expression profile. Our results suggest that duplicate genes tend to be co-expressed but the correlation between motif content and expression similarity is generally poor, only approximately 2-3% of expression variation can be explained by the motif divergence. Our observations suggest that, in addition to the cis-regulatory motif structure in the upstream region of the gene, multiple trans-acting factors in the gene network can influence the pattern of gene expression significantly.