Validating the Interactome
Scientists have charted a flurry of genome-level protein-protein interaction
maps recently,
now they must figure out how best to use them
By Jeffrey M. Perkel

If you want a sense of one of the hottest trends in biology today, open the
hood of your car. At first, the jumble of boxes, wires, circuitry, and hoses
that meets your eyes more likely will confuse than inform. Careful
examination, however, exposes an intricate order, in which modular processes
interact with each other to build ever-larger systems, culminating in a
working automobile.

A cell presents an equally confusing array of parts. But like the car, the
cell can be analyzed as a series of interacting systems working together to
build a whole greater than its parts. "The entire cell can be viewed as a
factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines,
each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines," wrote
National Academy of Sciences president Bruce Alberts in 1998.

Over the last few years, researchers engaged in the nascent field of
"interactomics" have been busy deconstructing these molecular machines,
mapping protein-protein interactions in bacteria, yeast, fruit flies,
nematodes, mice, and humans. The resulting charts have exposed the functions
of previously mysterious proteins, have helped drug companies hone their
development efforts, and are laying the foundations for systems biology.

Read the rest at The Scientist
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2004/jun/feature_040621.html

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