trans-regulatory deletions tend to decrease fitness more than cis-regulatory deletions that affect expression of the same focal gene. (A) The fitness of each gene deletion strain (Maclean et al. 2017) is plotted against the log₁₀ number of significantly differentially expressed genes attributable to the deletion of that gene (Kemmeren et al. 2014). The fit line is a least-squares regression surrounded by the 95% confidence interval. (B) For every focal gene, one minus the fitness of each trans-regulatory deletion (signifying the fitness cost of the mutation) is plotted on the y-axis and the fitness cost of the cis-regulatory deletion is plotted on the x-axis. Each focal gene thus has one x value and many y values. An x = y line, corresponding to equal fitness of cis- and trans-regulatory deletions, is shown. (C) For all focal genes, the median fitness cost of all trans-regulatory deletions for that gene is plotted on the y-axis and the fitness cost of the cis-regulatory deletion is plotted on the x-axis. An x = y line is shown.