The gaseous plant hormone ethylene regulates a multitude of growth and developmental processes. How the numerous growth control pathways are coordinated by the ethylene transcriptional response remains elusive. We characterized the dynamic ethylene transcriptional response by identifying targets of the master regulator of the ethylene signaling pathway, ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE3 (EIN3), using chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing and transcript sequencing during a timecourse of ethylene treatment. Ethylene-induced transcription occurs in temporal waves regulated by EIN3, suggesting distinct layers of transcriptional control. EIN3 binding was found to modulate a multitude of downstream transcriptional cascades, including a major feedback regulatory circuitry of the ethylene signaling pathway, as well as integrating numerous connections between most of the hormone mediated growth response pathways. These findings provide direct evidence linking each of the major plant growth and development networks in novel ways.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00675.001

Although cellular behaviors are dynamic, the networks that govern these behaviors have been mapped primarily as static snapshots. Using an approach called differential epistasis mapping, we have discovered widespread changes in genetic interaction among yeast kinases, phosphatases, and transcription factors as the cell responds to DNA damage. Differential interactions uncover many gene functions that go undetected in static conditions. They are very effective at identifying DNA repair pathways, highlighting new damage-dependent roles for the Slt2 kinase, Pph3 phosphatase, and histone variant Htz1. The data also reveal that protein complexes are generally stable in response to perturbation, but the functional relations between these complexes are substantially reorganized. Differential networks chart a new type of genetic landscape that is invaluable for mapping cellular responses to stimuli.One of the most basic approaches to understanding gene function relies on the identification of genetic interactions, which occur when the phenotypic effects of one gene depend on the presence of a second. Recently, a number of technologies have been developed to systematically map genetic interaction networks over large sets of genes in budding yeast (1-3) and other model organisms (4,5 To gain insight into how genetic networks are altered by stress, we assembled a large genetic interactome with and without perturbation by the DNA-damaging agent methyl methane-sulfonate (MMS). Using the technique of epistatic miniarray profiles (E-MAP) (8), genetic interactions were interrogated among a set of 418 yeast genes selected to provide broad coverage of the cellular signaling and transcriptional machinery, including nearly all yeast kinases, phosphatases, and transcription factors, as well as known DNA repair factors ( fig. S1 and table S1). About 80,000 double-mutant strains were generated from all pairwise mutant combinations of the 418 genes, in which mutations were complete gene deletions (nonessential genes) or hypomorphic alleles (essential genes) as appropriate. Double-mutant combinations were grown with or without 0.02% MMS, and their colony sizes were analyzed statistically to compute a genetic interaction score (S score) in each condition (9), which indicates whether the strain was healthier or sicker than expected (positive or negative S, respectively) (10).From established score thresholds for positive and negative interactions (S ≥ +2.0, S ≤ −2.5) (9) we identified two genetic networks: a set of 1905 interactions for the untreated condition, and a set of 2297 interactions under MMS. Analysis of these "static" genetic maps showed strong associations with physical interaction networks of various kinds. For example, gene pairs with either positive or negative genetic interactions were highly enriched for proteins known to physically interact. In addition, both maps were enriched for known kinase-and phosphatase-substrate pairs, as well as transcription factor-target pairs ( fig. S2). The correspondence to physical...

To date, cross-species comparisons of genetic interactomes have been restricted to small or functionally related gene sets, limiting our ability to infer evolutionary trends. To facilitate a more comprehensive analysis, we constructed a genome-scale epistasis map (E-MAP) for the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, providing phenotypic signatures for ~60% of the non-essential genome. Using these signatures, we generated a catalogue of 297 functional modules, and assigned function to 144 previously uncharacterised genes, including mRNA splicing and DNA damage checkpoint factors. Comparison with an integrated genetic interactome from the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae revealed a hierarchical model for the evolution of genetic interactions, with conservation highest within protein complexes, lower within biological processes, and lowest between distinct biological processes. Despite the large evolutionary distance and extensive rewiring of individual interactions, both networks retain conserved features and display similar levels of functional cross-talk between biological processes, suggesting general design principles of genetic interactomes.

SUMMARY DNA damage activates checkpoint kinases that induce several downstream events, including widespread changes in transcription. However, the specific connections between the checkpoint kinases and downstream transcription factors (TFs) are not well understood. Here, we integrate kinase mutant expression profiles, transcriptional regulatory interactions, and phosphoproteomics to map kinases and downstream TFs to transcriptional regulatory networks. Specifically, we investigate the role of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae checkpoint kinases (Mec1, Tel1, Chk1, Rad53, and Dun1) in the transcriptional response to DNA damage caused by methyl methanesulfonate. The result is a global kinase-TF regulatory network in which Mec1 and Tel1 signal through Rad53 to synergistically regulate the expression of more than 600 genes. This network involves at least nine TFs, many of which have Rad53-dependent phosphorylation sites, as regulators of checkpoint-kinase-dependent genes. We also identify a major DNA damage-induced transcriptional network that regulates stress response genes independently of the checkpoint kinases.