Assessment of effectiveness of the network-guided genetic screen

Abstract

Network-guided genetic screen (NGGS) has been suggested to be more effective than traditional forward or reverse genetics screen. Although the predictability of NGGS with given networks has been measured in previous studies, its general effectiveness, particularly for genome-wide reverse genetic screens, has not been assessed yet. We estimated the general effectiveness of NGGS by simulating iterative searching over networks for known phenotypic genes in two model organisms, baker's yeast (S. cerevisiae) and worm (C. elegans). We found that NGGS is more effective in C. elegans, implicating a higher value for NGGS in animals including humans.