High-Throughput Analyses and Curation of Protein Interactions in Yeast

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the model organism in which protein interactions have been most extensively analyzed. The vast majority of these interactions have been characterized by a variety of sophisticated high-throughput techniques probing different aspects of protein association. This chapter summarizes the major techniques, highlights their complementary nature, discusses the data they produce, and highlights some of the biases from which they suffer. A main focus is the key role played by computational methods for processing, analyzing, and validating the large body of noisy data produced by the experimental procedures. It also describes how computational methods are used to extend the coverage and reliability of protein interaction data by integrating information from heterogeneous sources and reviews the current status of literature-curated data on yeast protein interactions stored in specialized databases.