|
|
|
This site supports Lee et al. Science 298:799-804 (2002)
|
|
Living cells are the product of gene expression programs involving regulated transcription of thousands of genes. Gene expression programs depend on recognition of specific promoter sequences by transcriptional regulatory proteins. How a collection of regulatory proteins associates with genes across a genome can be described as a transcriptional regulatory network. We have determined how most of the transcriptional regulators encoded in the eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae associate with genes across the genome in living cells. Just as maps of metabolic networks describe the potential pathways that may be used by a cell to accomplish metabolic processes, this map of the transcriptional regulatory network describes potential pathways yeast cells can use to regulate global gene expression programs. We use the network of regulator gene interactions to describe eukaryotic network motifs and show how these can be built into modules of function. The network map reveals that gene expression programs and cellular functions are highly connected through networks of transcriptional regulators that regulate other transcriptional regulators. |
