Co-expression of adjacent genes in yeast cannot be simply attributed to shared regulatory system (original) (raw)

Background: Adjacent gene pairs in the yeast genome have a tendency to express concurrently. Sharing of regulatory elements within the intergenic region of those adjacent gene pairs was often considered the major mechanism responsible for such co-expression. However, it is still in debate to what extent that common transcription factors (TFs) contribute to the co-expression of adjacent genes. In order to resolve the evolutionary aspect of this issue, we investigated the conservation of adjacent pairs in five yeast species. By using the information for TF binding sites in promoter regions available from the MYBS database http://cg1.iis.sinica.edu.tw/\~mybs/, the ratios of TF-sharing pairs among all the adjacent pairs in yeast genomes were analyzed. The levels of coexpression in different adjacent patterns were also compared.