Department of Oncological Sciences and Division of Molecular Angiogenesis, Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment (IRCC), University of Torino Medical School, Strada Provinciale, I-10060 Candiolo (Turin), Italy. zanivan@biochem.mpg.de
We propose a new approach to identify interacting proteins based on gene expression data. By using hypergeometric distribution and extensive Monte-Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that looking at synchronous expression peaks in a single time interval is a high sensitivity approach to detect co-regulation among interacting proteins. Combining gene expression and Gene Ontology similarity analyses enabled the extraction of novel interactions from microarray datasets. Applying this approach to p21-activated kinase 1, we validated alpha-tubulin and early endosome antigen 1 as its novel interactors.