Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: If necessity is the mother of invention, then its father is an inveterate tinkerer, with a large garage full of spare parts. Innovation (like homicide) requires motive and opportunity. Clearly, the predominant ‘motive ’ during the evolution of a novel gene function is to gain a selective advantage. To understand why gene duplications represent the major ‘opportunities ’ from which new genes evolve, we must first consider what constrains genic evolution. The vast majority of genes in every genome are selectively constrained, in that most nucleotide changes that alter the fitness of the organism are deleterious. How do we know this? Comparisons between genomes clearly demonstrate that coding sequences diverge at slower rates than non-coding regions, largely due to a deficit of mutations at positions where a base change would cause an amino-acid PLoS Biology |
Source: PLoS Biology
Author: Matthew Hurles
Institution: Wellcome Sanger Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $5,500
OpenAlex ID: W2057874793