Epistasis-mediated compensatory evolution in a fitness landscape with adaptational tradeoffs.

ABSTRACT: The evolutionary adaptation of an organism to a stressful environment often comes at the cost of reduced fitness. For example, resistance to antimicrobial drugs frequently reduces growth rate in the drug-free environment. This cost can be compensated without loss in resistance by mutations at secondary sites when the organism evolves again in the stress-free environment. Here, we analytically and numerically study evolution on a simple model fitness landscape to show that compensatory evolution can occur even in the presence of the stress and without the need for mutations at secondary sites. Fitness in the model depends on two phenotypes-the null-fitness defined as the fitness in the absence of stress, and the resistance level to the stress. Mutations universally exhibit antagonistic plei

SUBMITTER: Das SG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12012525 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature