Identifying Correlations between Chromosomal Proximity of Genes and Distance of Their Products in Protein-Protein Interaction Networks of Yeast

In this article we present evidence for a relationship between chromosome gene loci and the topological properties of the protein-protein interaction network corresponding to the set of genes under consideration. Specifically, for each chromosome of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome, the distribution of the intra-chromosome inter-gene distances was analyzed and a positive correlation with the distance among the corresponding proteins of the protein-protein interaction network was found. In order to study this relationship we used concepts based on non-parametric statistics and information theory.We provide statistical evidence that if two genes are closely located, then it is likely that their protein products are closely located in the protein-protein interaction network, or in other words, that they are involved in the same biological process.