Related papers: The driving force behind genomic diversity
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
`Entropy' appears as driving force in many different evolution equations, both deterministic and stochastic, and in these equations this `entropy' also takes different forms. We show how all these examples can be understood as different…
Genome length varies widely among organisms, from compact genomes of prokaryotes to vast and complex genomes of eukaryotes. In this study, we theoretically identify the evolutionary pressures that may have driven this divergence in genome…
The dynamics of molecular collisions in a macroscopic body are encoded by the parameter Thermodynamic entropy - a statistical measure of the number of molecular configurations that correspond to a given macrostate. Directionality in the…
Evolution has fascinated quantitative and physical scientists for decades: how can the random process of mutation, recombination, and duplication of genetic information generate the diversity of life? What determines the rate of evolution?…
The genes of eukaryotes are characterized by protein coding fragments, the exons, interrupted by introns, i.e. stretches of DNA which do not carry any useful information for the protein synthesis. We have analyzed the melting behavior of…
The problem of the directionality of genome evolution is studied from the information-theoretic view. We propose that the function-coding information quantity of a genome always grows in the course of evolution through sequence duplication,…
A tumor can be thought of as an ecosystem, which critically means that we cannot just consider it as a collection of mutated cells but more as a complex system of many interacting cellular and microenvironmental elements. At its simplest, a…
The prevalence of sexual reproduction ("sex") in eukaryotes is an enigma of evolutionary biology. Sex increases genetic variation only tells its long-term superiority in essence. The accumulation of harmful mutations causes an immediate and…
Genetic sequences are known to possess non-trivial composition together with symmetries in the frequencies of their components. Recently, it has been shown that symmetry and structure are hierarchically intertwined in DNA, suggesting a…
Large sets of genotypes give rise to the same phenotype because phenotypic expression is highly redundant. Accordingly, a population can accept mutations without altering its phenotype, as long as thegenotype mutates into another one on the…
Textual analysis of typical microbial genomes reveals that they have the statistical characteristics of a DNA sequence of a much shorter length. This peculiar property supports an evolutionary model in which a genome evolves by random…
Many mechanisms, functions and structures of life have been unraveled. However, the fundamental driving force that propelled chemical evolution and led to life has remained obscure. The 2nd law of thermodynamics, written as an equation of…
The problem of the directionality of genome evolution is studied. Based on the analysis of C-value paradox and the evolution of genome size we propose that the function-coding information quantity of a genome always grows in the course of…
Large-scale dynamical properties of complete chromosome DNA sequences of eukaryotes are considered. By the proposed deterministic models with intermittency and symbolic dynamics we describe a wide spectrum of large-scale patterns inherent…
Most living systems rely on double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) to store their genetic information and perpetuate themselves. This biological information has been considered the main target of evolution. However, here we show that symmetries and…
We present a model of the evolution of control systems in a genome under environmental constraints. The model conceptually follows the Jacob and Monod model of gene control. Genes contain control elements which respond to the internal state…
We study the probabilities of evolution based on random mutations and natural selection. We conclude that evolution to multicellular eukaryots, or even prokaryots, is unlikely to be the result of only random mutations. Complex organisms…
Research in quantitative evolutionary genomics and systems biology led to the discovery of several universal regularities connecting genomic and molecular phenomic variables. These universals include the log-normal distribution of the…
This theory seeks to define species and to explore evolutionary forces and genetic elements in speciation and species maintenance. The theory explains how speciation and species maintenance are caused by natural selection acting on…