Multifunctional genes

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Abstract
Mol Syst Biol. 1: 2005.0003 How many genes encode proteins involved in multiple cellular processes? Genetic pleiotropy becomes apparent when mutations in a single gene give rise to diverse phenotypes. Such pleiotropy is well documented for several human disease genes but has not yet been systematically investigated. In their article, (Dudley et al 2005) describe the first genome‐wide study of genetic pleiotropy. Their findings have implications for several fields, including genetics, drug discovery, bioinformatics and evolution. To discover and study pleiotropic genes, the authors have harnessed the workhorse of functional genomics, the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Single gene deletion strains, representing all 4700 nonessential genes, were analyzed for growth under 21 different conditions, ranging from induction of DNA damage to iron limitation. Of these mutant strains, 551 exhibited a phenotype in only one or two conditions. Strikingly, 216 strains show growth defects in 3–14 conditions, a much higher degree of pleiotropy than may be expected based on a random distribution of phenotypes. It is impressive that this study encompasses newly generated data, aimed at studying pleiotropy in particular. Whereas systematic gene silencing using RNAi is still …