PREDICTION OF MUTANT EXPRESSION PATTERNS USING GENE CIRCUITS

Networks of interacting transcription factors, or gene circuits, form an essential part of the metabolic pathways controlling macromolecular synthesis. This paper conveys two new results about gene circuits. We first show how a gene circuit for mutant phenotypes can be constructe d from the wild type gene circuit for the same organism. We then prese nt results of computational studies that show that mutant expression p atterns can be correctly predicted using gene circuits whose parameter s have been determined from wild type data only. Further computational studies demonstrate that this property is insensitive to errors as la rge as a factor of two in the input data. Together, these results show that gene circuits can be used to identify the regulatory mechanisms governing an entire family of genotypes from a knowledge of the wild t ype genotype alone. It is argued that this fact forms the basis for a new paradigm in genetics. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All r ights reserved.