Related papers: Lethal Mutagenesis in Viruses and Bacteria
The vast majority of mutations are deleterious, and are eliminated by purifying selection. Yet in finite asexual populations, purifying selection cannot completely prevent the accumulation of deleterious mutations due to Muller's ratchet:…
This paper develops a mathematical model describing the influence that conjugation-mediated Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) has on the mutation-selection balance in an asexually reproducing population of unicellular, prokaryotic organisms.…
In the present work we analyze the problem of adaptation and evolution of RNA virus populations, by defining the basic stochastic model as a multivariate branching process in close relation with the branching process advanced by Demetrius,…
We consider a stochastic model of population dynamics where each individual is characterised by a trait in {0,1,...,L} and has a natural reproduction rate, a logistic death rate due to age or competition and a probability of mutation…
The sensitivity of the native states of protein-like heteropolymers to mutations modelled as perturbations in the interaction potential between amino acids is studied. The stability threshold against mutations is shown to be zero for random…
In this paper we study a class of stochastic individual-based models that describe the evolution of haploid populations where each individual is characterised by a phenotype and a genotype. The phenotype of an individual determines its…
Homeostasis of protein concentrations in cells is crucial for their proper functioning, and this requires concentrations (at their steady-state levels) to be stable to fluctuations. Since gene expression is regulated by proteins such as…
In this work we develop a microscopic physical model of early evolution, where phenotype,organism life expectancy, is directly related to genotype, the stability of its proteins in their native conformations which can be determined exactly…
The rate of mRNA translation depends on the initiation, elongation, and termination rates of ribosomes along the mRNA. These rates depend on many "local" factors like the abundance of free ribosomes and tRNA molecules in the vicinity of the…
A simulation model of a population having internal (genetic) structure is presented. The population is subject to selection pressure coming from the environment which is the same in the whole system but changes in time. Reproduction has a…
We have presented the basic knowledge on the structure of molecules coding the genetic information, mechanisms of transfer of this information from DNA to proteins and phenomena connected with replication of DNA. In particular, we have…
The effects of inbreeding on human health depend critically on the number and severity of recessive, deleterious mutations carried by individuals. In humans, existing estimates of these quantities are based on comparisons between…
Phenotype of biological systems needs to be robust against mutation in order to sustain themselves between generations. On the other hand, phenotype of an individual also needs to be robust against fluctuations of both internal and external…
We introduce and analyze a general model of a population evolving over a network of selectively neutral genotypes. We show that the population's limit distribution on the neutral network is solely determined by the network topology and…
We introduce and study the mutating contact process, a variant of the multitype contact process, where one type mutates at a constant rate to the other type. We prove that on $\mathbb{Z}$ a single mutant cannot survive while on…
The fitness contribution of an allele at one genetic site may depend on alleles at other sites, a phenomenon known as epistasis. Epistasis can profoundly influence the process of evolution in populations under selection, and can shape the…
We model the growth, dispersal and mutation of two phenotypes of a species using reaction-diffusion equations, focusing on the biologically realistic case of small mutation rates. After verifying that the addition of a small linear mutation…
By balancing the average energy gap with its typical change due to mutations for protein-like heteropolymers with M residues, we show that native states are unstable to mutations on a scale M* ~ (lambda/sigma_mu)^(1/zeta_s), where lambda is…
We have investigated the role that the mutation rate and the structure of genetic variation at a locus play in determining whether a gene is involved in disease. We predict that the mutation rate and its genetic diversity should be higher…
The evolution of two species with different fitness is investigated on degree-heterogeneous graphs. The population evolves either by one individual dying and being replaced by the offspring of a random neighbor (voter model (VM) dynamics)…