A toolbox model of evolution of metabolic pathways on networks of arbitrary topology.

ABSTRACT: In prokaryotic genomes the number of transcriptional regulators is known to be proportional to the square of the total number of protein-coding genes. A toolbox model of evolution was recently proposed to explain this empirical scaling for metabolic enzymes and their regulators. According to its rules, the metabolic network of an organism evolves by horizontal transfer of pathways from other species. These pathways are part of a larger "universal" network formed by the union of all species-specific networks. It remained to be understood, however, how the topological properties of this universal network influence the scaling law of functional content of genomes in the toolbox model. Here we answer this question by first analyzing the scaling properties of the toolbox model on arbitrary tree

SUBMITTER: Pang TY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3098196 | biostudies-literature | 2011 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature