Journal
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Volume 29, Issue 5, Pages 1353-1366Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msr300
Keywords
complex adaptation; dimer; genome evolution; heteromer; molecular evolution; random genetic drift
Funding
- National Institute of Health [R01GM036827]
- National Science Foundation [EF-0827411]
- US Department of Defense [ONRBAA10-002]
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Although the mechanisms by which complex cellular features evolve constitute one of the great unsolved problems of evolutionary biology, it is clear that the emergence of new protein-protein interactions, often accompanied by the diversification of duplicate genes, is involved. Using information on the levels of protein multimerization in major phylogenetic groups as a guide to the patterns that must be explained and relying on results from population-genetic theory to define the relative plausibility of alternative evolutionary pathways, a framework for understanding the evolution of dimers is developed. The resultant theory demonstrates that the likelihoods of alternative pathways for the emergence of protein complexes depend strongly on the effective population size. Nonetheless, it is equally clear that further advancements in this area will require comparative studies on the fitness consequences of alternative monomeric and dimeric proteins.
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