UW investigators publish protein links in Feb. 10 Nature

A protein linkage map that identifies nearly 1,000 protein-protein interactions was published by UW researchers and colleagues as the cover story in the Feb. 10 issue of Nature. The map includes many functionally unclassified proteins revealed by the sequencing of the yeast genome.

In collaboration with CuraGen Corp. researchers, Dr. Stanley Fields, a professor of genetics and medicine, led a UW team that developed automated methods for systematic analysis of large numbers of yeast proteins.

These methods, based on the two-hybrid system, which Fields also developed, allowed the researchers to detect 957 putative interactions involving 1,004 yeast proteins.

Scientists around the world will use the data to determine the implications of these interactions in the generation of a eukaryote organism. Once the complete sequence of the human genome is available, the same approach may be used in efforts to understand the functions of human genome products.

Fields is also an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

A bioinformatics platform for the analysis of the data set published in Nature is available at: http://portal.curagen.com