Sign Epistasis Can be Absent in Multi-peaked Landscapes With Neutral Mutations.

ABSTRACT: Fitness landscapes provide a rigorous mathematical framework for analyzing evolutionary dynamics, including the study of epistasis, the main obstacle to predicting phenotype from genotype. In 2011, Poelwijk et al. formulated a foundational theorem stating that in any multi-peaked fitness landscape, "at least two mutations exhibit reciprocal sign epistasis" (Poelwijk et al., J. Theor. Biol., 272:141). The proof relied on the implicit assumption that neutral mutations are absent, commonly accepted in theoretical studies in evolutionary biology. In this study, we extend Poelwijk et al.'s analysis by incorporating genotypes with equal fitness, specifically, accounting for neutral mutations. We demonstrate that when neutral mutations are considered, conventional pairwise reciprocal sign epistas

SUBMITTER: Ivankov DN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12906951 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature