Evolution favors protein mutational robustness in sufficiently large populations.

ABSTRACT:

Background

An important question is whether evolution favors properties such as mutational robustness or evolvability that do not directly benefit any individual but can influence the course of future evolution. Functionally similar proteins can differ substantially in their robustness to mutations and capacity to evolve new functions, but it has remained unclear whether any of these differences might be due to evolutionary selection for these properties.

Results

Here, we use laboratory experiments to demonstrate that evolution favors protein mutational robustness if the evolving population is sufficiently large. We neutrally evolve cytochrome P450 proteins under identical selection pressures and mutation rates in populations of different sizes, and show that proteins from t

SUBMITTER: Bloom JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1995189 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature