Response to Dr Stephen Cooper's 'On the use of metaphor to understand, explain, or rationalize redundant genes in yeast'. |
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| Authors: | Xuewen Pan Daniel Yuan Ping Ye Joel Bader Jef D Boeke |
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| Affiliation: | High Throughput Biology Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; and Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA. |
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| Abstract: | Earlier use of a metaphor in explaining genetic redundancy in a news article has triggered a commentary and a competing metaphor by Dr Stephen Cooper, who went on to conclude that genetic redundancies are relatively unimportant for microorganisms. We argue here that the new metaphor is flawed and that genetic redundancies are integral to buffering all organisms against environmental and genetic damage. |
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| Keywords: | synthetic lethality Saccharomyces cerevisiae genetic interactions DNA repair DNA replication |
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