FIGURE 1 

Congruent synthetic lethal (SL) interactions are consistent with functional pathway membership. (A) A simplified synthetic lethality pathway model. Black arrows indicate the schematic flow of a process, with essential genes (red circles) connected by non-essential genes (black circles) organized into two parallel pathway branches (black dashed lines). If at least one of the pathway branches is required for viability, SL interactions (red lines) will be observed between the pathway branches but not within a pathway branch. In this picture, deleting any component of a pathway branch destroys its activity. (B) Directly observed SL genetic interactions bridge pathway branches. The table indicates that SL interactions will be observed between components of the two pathway branches, whereas no interactions will be observed within a branch. (C) Functional associations inferred from the congruence score (blue lines) join the components of a pathway branch. The table indicates raw number of SL interaction partners shared by a pair of genes and its conversion to the congruence score, calculated as the -log₁₀P-value for partner sharing. The congruence connections are orthogonal to the direct SL interactions and align with pathway membership.