Journal
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Volume 23, Issue 10, Pages 1852-1862Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msl064
Keywords
mutation bias; GC content; NK model; simulation; adaptive evolution; adaptive walk
Funding
- NLM NIH HHS [R01-LM007218] Funding Source: Medline
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Evolutionary trends responsible for systematic differences in genome and proteome composition have been attributed to GC:AT mutation bias in the context of neutral evolution or to selection acting on genome composition. A possibility that has been ignored, presumably because it is part of neither the Modern Synthesis nor the Neutral Theory, is that mutation may impose a directional bias on adaptation. This possibility is explored here with simulations of the effect of a GC:AT bias on amino acid composition during adaptive walks on an abstract protein fitness landscape called an NK model. The results indicate that adaptation does not preclude mutation-biased evolution. In the complete absence of neutral evolution, a modest GC:AT bias of realistic magnitude can displace the trajectory of adaptation in a mutationally favored direction, to such a degree that amino acid composition is biased substantially and persistently. Thus, mutational explanations for evolved patterns need not presuppose neutral evolution.
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