Question

When comparing pairs of genes or sets of genes in different genomes for this purpose, it is not mandatory for the genes to be orthologs.

(a) True

(b) False

This question was addressed to me during an interview.

I would like to ask this question from The Use of Gene Order & Phylogeny to Predict Protein in chapter Global Approaches for Studying Protein – Protein Interactions of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

The correct choice is (b) False

For explanation I would say: When comparing pairs of genes or sets of genes in different genomes for this purpose, it is important to ensure that the genes are truly equivalent, in other words that they are orthologs, as opposed to merely similar genes. This is frequently done by only accepting a pair of proteins as orthologs if they are ‘bi-directional best hits’. This means that both proteins are the best match to each other when searching against the other proteome. The other extreme would be to consider proteins as equivalent if they share just one of many domains, for instance.