Adaptive tracking with antagonistic pleiotropy results in seemingly neutral molecular evolution.

ABSTRACT: The neutral theory of molecular evolution, positing that most amino acid substitutions in protein evolution are neutral, is supported by vast comparative genomic data. However, here we report that the key premise of the theory-beneficial mutations are extremely scarce-is violated. Deep mutational scanning data from 12,267 amino acid-altering mutations in 24 prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes reveal that > 1% of these mutations are beneficial, predicting that > 99% of amino acid substitutions would be adaptive. This observation demands a new theory that is compatible with both the high beneficial mutation rate and the comparative genomic data considered consistent with the neutral theory. We propose such a theory named adaptive tracking with antagonistic pleiotropy. In this theory, virtually

SUBMITTER: Song S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12821161 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature