This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: One of biology's fundamental questions is how our genes shape who we are. Adrian Serohijos and Stephen Michnick, professors in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at Université de Montréal's Faculty of Medicine, are studying the relationship between genotype and phenotype—that is, how DNA becomes RNA, then protein, and ultimately gives rise to observable characteristics in an individual or any other living organism.
"We're trying to unravel the mechanisms of the genome, specifically how the information it encodes is processed inside the cell," Serohijos says. The problem can be approached in two ways: One is to look at how an organism changes when disturbed by its environment. The other, pursued by researchers at the Courtois Institute of Innovation, is to focus on mutations in an individual's genome, which play an important role in defining individual traits.
"This is an important question because our DNA determines not only our physical characteristics, such as eye color, but also how we respond to medications, which is essential in the context of personalized medicine," Michnick explains. However, predictions cannot be made based on an individual's DNA alone. While DNA has long been decoded, as has RNA, Serohijos, Michnick and their colleagues, including Savandara Besse, then a doctoral student, and Tatsuya Sakguchi, who was a visiting professor at UdeM, have published the first study to examine the relationship between genomic mutations and the protein "social network" in the cell.
Launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, the project was conducted in collaboration with the laboratory of Julie Hussin, a professor in the Department of Medicine. The study is now the subject of an article published in Nature Genetics. Inside cells, proteins interact dynamically with one another, forming a network of interactions.
The state of this "social network" helps define the characteristics of cells and individuals. What if mutations in DNA caused changes in protein networks and, ultimately, in the characteristics of individuals? That is what Serohijos, Michnick and members of their laboratories set out to investigate.
Their new approach examines the social network of proteins to identify the unexpected effects of mutations, some of which are associated with disease, as well as environmental perturbations, such as those caused by exposure to medications. The researchers applied their method to 350 strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a single-celled fungus, which they exposed to several drugs, including antifungals, an antidiabetic drug and an antipsychotic. Nearly 1 million protein-protein interactions were measured.
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