Big on Change, Small on Innovation: Evolutionary Consequences of RNA Sequence Duplication.

ABSTRACT: The potential for biopolymers to evolve new structures has important consequences for their ability to optimize function and our attempts to reconstruct their evolutionary histories. Prior work with in vitro systems suggests that structural remodeling of RNA is difficult to achieve through the accumulation of point mutations or through recombination events. Sequence duplication may represent an alternative mechanism that can more readily lead to the evolution of new structures. Structural and sequence elements in many RNAs and proteins appear to be the products of duplication events, indicating that this mechanism plays a major role in molecular evolution. Despite the potential significance of this mechanism, little experimental data is available concerning the structural and evolutionary

SUBMITTER: Plebanek A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6711949 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature