Functionally clustered

From NMPDR Wiki

Two genes are functionally clustered if similar genes are found together in other diverse organisms. Functional clustering is an indication that two genes have related functional roles. In the diagram to the left, the top two genes are functionally clustered, and the bottom two genes, being similar to the originals and located near each other in an unrelated organism, are considered evidence of the coupling.

In the NMPDR, the functionally clustered genes and the evidence of the clustering is stored on an external server. Given a gene, the server responds with a list of the clustered genes and the evidence for each. This information is used to determine which genes belong together. For genes that produce proteins, this is an indication that the genes may be part of an undiscovered subsystem. For other types of genes, the clustering is evidence that they may be involved in regulation.