An investment of $100 million should be enough to correlate the genome with function, and identify new basic research and drug targets
The first human interactome maps, published just last year, offer literally thousands of starting points for further research.1,2 Yet subsequent analyses also demonstrate just how difficult it can be to convert interaction data into reliable hypotheses.
Both Marc Vidal and Erich Wanker, who published his map first, used their data to identify novel interactions. For example, Wanker identified new partners for the protein emerin, a mutation that leads to Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy, as well as novel modulators of the Wnt signaling pathway. Vidal identified 424 interaction pairs in which at least one member had previously been implicated in human disease, including a new interaction between RTN4, a neurite outgrowth inhibitor, and SPG21 (spastic paraplegia 21), a mutation that leads to Mast syndrome.
In January Peter Uetz, Yu-An Dong, ...
