 Although in classical genetics the term synthetic lethality refers to the interaction between two genetic perturbations, synthetic lethality can also apply to cases in which the combination of a mutation and the action of a chemical compound causes lethality, whereas the mutation or compound alone are non-lethal.Synthetic lethality is a consequence of the tendency of organisms to maintain buffering schemes that allow phenotypic stability despite genetic variation, environmental changes and random events such as mutations.This genetic robustness is the result of parallel redundant pathways and "capacitor" proteins that camouflage the effects of mutations so that important cellular processes do not depend on any individual component.