Grant: Canada Research Chairs

The remarkable extent to which the protein-coding genes are still functionally equivalent between *humans and yeast emphasizes the power of distant organisms for studying human processes. *Humans and yeast obviously differ dramatically with respect to cell and tissue organization. *Nonetheless, our recent systematic study showed that nearly half of the tested protein-coding *human genes could substitute for their yeast equivalents. The results reveal which conserved *processes are still interchangeable creating direct assays of human gene function for that subset. *Finally, these studies demonstrate the broad equivalence of function between yeast and humans, *providing fundamental insights into gene evolution.