No simple dependence between protein evolution rate and the number of protein-protein interactions: only the most prolific interactors tend to evolve slowly

The currently available comparative-genomic data do not support the hypothesis that the evolutionary rates of the majority of proteins substantially depend on the number of protein-protein interactions they are involved in. However, a small fraction of yeast proteins with the largest number of interactions (the hubs of the interaction network) tend to evolve slower than the bulk of the proteins.