Evolution in Silico and in Vitro: The RNA Model
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P. Schuster
Abstract
Theoretical concepts and experiments dealing with the evolution of molecules in vitro reached a state that allows for direct applications to the design of biomolecules with predefined properties. RNA evolution in vitro represents a basis for the development of a new and comprehensive model of evolution, focusing on the phenotype and its fitness relevant properties. Relations between genotypes and phenotypes are described by mappings from genotype space onto a space of phenotypes, which are manytoone and thus give ample room for neutrality as expressed by the existence of extended neutral networks in genotype space. The RNA model reduces genotypephenotype relations to mappings from sequences into secondary structures of minimal free energies and allows for derivation of otherwise inaccessible quantitative results. Continuity and discontinuity in evolution are defined through a new notion of accessibility in phenotype space that provides a basis for straightforward interpretation of computer simulations on RNA optimization; furthermore, it reveals the constructive role of random genomic drift in the search for phenotypes of higher fitness. The effects of population size on the course of evolutionary optimization can be predicted quantitatively by means of a simple stochastic model based on a birthanddeath process with immigration.
Copyright © 2001 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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- Modeling Genetic Networks and Their Evolution: A Complex Dynamical Systems Perspective
- Evolution in Silico and in Vitro: The RNA Model
- Divergent Evolution of (??)8-Barrel Enzymes
- RNA-Catalyzed Carbon-Carbon Bond Formation
- Toward Automated Nucleic Acid Enzyme Selection
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- The Stochastic Evolution of Catalysts in Spatially Resolved Molecular Systems
- Fragment-Based Flexible Ligand Docking by Evolutionary Optimization
- Specific Nucleoprotein Complexes within Adenovirus Capsids
- ERH (Enhancer of Rudimentary Homologue), a Conserved Factor Identical between Frog and Human, Is a Transcriptional Repressor
- Signal Transduction by the Chemokine Receptor CXCR5: Structural Requirements for G Protein Activation Analyzed by Chimeric CXCR1/CXCR5 Molecules
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Articles in the same Issue
- Highlight: Evolution in Vivo, in Vitro and in Machina
- Modeling Genetic Networks and Their Evolution: A Complex Dynamical Systems Perspective
- Evolution in Silico and in Vitro: The RNA Model
- Divergent Evolution of (??)8-Barrel Enzymes
- RNA-Catalyzed Carbon-Carbon Bond Formation
- Toward Automated Nucleic Acid Enzyme Selection
- Duocalins: Engineered Ligand-Binding Proteins with Dual Specificity Derived from the Lipocalin Fold
- The Stochastic Evolution of Catalysts in Spatially Resolved Molecular Systems
- Fragment-Based Flexible Ligand Docking by Evolutionary Optimization
- Specific Nucleoprotein Complexes within Adenovirus Capsids
- ERH (Enhancer of Rudimentary Homologue), a Conserved Factor Identical between Frog and Human, Is a Transcriptional Repressor
- Signal Transduction by the Chemokine Receptor CXCR5: Structural Requirements for G Protein Activation Analyzed by Chimeric CXCR1/CXCR5 Molecules
- Arginine-Specific Cysteine Proteinase from Porphyromonas gingivalis as a Convenient Tool in Protein Chemistry
- Chemokine-Induced Secretion of Gelatinase B in Primary Human Monocytes
