English

Drake's Rule as a Consequence of Approaching Channel Capacity

Populations and Evolution 2014-09-22 v4 Genomics

Abstract

How mutations accumulate in genomes is the central question of molecular evolution theories, however our understanding of this process is far from complete. Drake's rule is a notoriously universal property of genomes from microbes to mammals - the number of (functional) mutations per-genome per-generation is approximately constant within a phylum, despite orders of magnitude differences in genome sizes and diverse populations properties. So far there is no concise explanation for this phenomenon. A formal model of storage of genetic information suggests that a genome of any species operates near its maximum informational storage capacity, and the mutation rate is near its upper limit, providing a simple explanation for the rule with minimal assumptions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1306.4117,
  title  = {Drake's Rule as a Consequence of Approaching Channel Capacity},
  author = {Alexey A. Shadrin and Dmitri V. Parkhomchuk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.4117},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

Keywords: Drake's rule, information theory, neutral theory