High-throughput approaches to understanding gene function and mapping network architecture in bacteria.

Advances in sequencing technology have provided an unprecedented view of bacterial diversity, along with a daunting number of novel genes. Within this new reality lies the challenge of developing large-scale approaches to assign function to the new genes and place them in pathways. Here, we highlight recent advances on this front, focusing on how high-throughput gene-gene, gene-drug and drug-drug interactions can yield functional and mechanistic inferences in bacteria.