An inter-species protein–protein interaction network across vast evolutionary distance

Abstract

In cellular systems, biophysical interactions between macromolecules underlie a complex web of functional interactions. How biophysical and functional networks are coordinated, whether all biophysical interactions correspond to functional interactions, and how such biophysical-versus-functional network coordination is shaped by evolutionary forces are all largely unanswered questions. Here, we investigate these questions using an “inter-interactome” approach. We systematically probed the yeast and human proteomes for interactions between proteins from these two species and functionally characterized the resulting inter-interactome network. After a billion years of evolutionary divergence, the yeast and human proteomes are still capable of forming a biophysical network with properties that resemble those of intra-species networks. Although substantially reduced relative to intra-species networks, the levels of functional overlap in the yeast–human inter-interactome network uncover significant remnants of co-functionality widely preserved in the two proteomes beyond human–yeast homologs. Our data support evolutionary selection against biophysical interactions between proteins with little or no co-functionality. Such non-functional interactions, however, represent a reservoir from which nascent functional interactions may arise.