Communicated by David Botstein, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, October 31, 2005 (received for review August 8, 2005)
One of the most powerful techniques for attributing functions to genes in uni- and multicellular organisms is comprehensive analysis of mutant traits. In this study, systematic and quantitative analyses of mutant traits are achieved in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae by investigating morphological phenotypes. Analysis of fluorescent microscopic images of triple-stained cells makes it possible to treat morphological variations as quantitative traits. Deletion of nearly half of the yeast genes not essential for growth affects these morphological traits. Similar morphological phenotypes are caused by deletions of functionally related genes, enabling a functional assignment of a locus to a specific cellular pathway. The high-dimensional phenotypic analysis of defined yeast mutant strains provides another step toward attributing gene function to all of the genes in the yeast genome.
↵ ‡ To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail. ohya{at}k.u-tokyo.ac.jp or (for bioinformatics questions) moris{at}cb.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
↵ ¶ J.S. and M.Y. contributed equally to this work.
Author contributions: Y.O. and S. Morishita designed research; M.Y., F.S., A.S., T.F., S.I., S.O., G.S., M.W., A.H., N.F., S.T., S. Muramatsu, and S.N. performed research; J.-P.L., J.M.F., M.A., H.A., and K.S. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; J.S., Y.N., M.O., and H.S. analyzed data; Y.O. and S.N. wrote the paper; J.S. predicted relationship between morphology and gene function; M.Y. designed experiments and performed biological analysis; F.S. collected morphological data of mutants; Y.N. estimated morphological mutants; and T.L.S. constructed and managed database web site.
Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
Abbreviation: GO, gene ontology.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
