Related papers: The genomic consequences of hybridization
There is an intrinsic relationship between the molecular evolution in primordial period and the properties of genomes and proteomes of contemporary species. The genomic data may help us understand the driving force of evolution of life at…
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…
Understanding why we age is a long-lived open problem in evolutionary biology. Aging is prejudicial to the individual and evolutionary forces should prevent it, but many species show signs of senescence as individuals age. Here, I will…
The accumulation of somatic mutations is a driver of cancer and has long been associated with ageing. Due to limitations in quantifying mutation burden with age in non-cancerous tissues, the impact of somatic mutations in other ageing…
In DNA computing, it is impossible to decide whether a specific hybridization among complex DNA molecules is effective or not within acceptable time. In order to address this common problem, we introduce a new method based on the machine…
Our genomes influence nearly every aspect of human biology from molecular and cellular functions to phenotypes in health and disease. Human genetics studies have now associated hundreds of thousands of differences in our DNA sequence…
To learn about the past from a sample of genomic sequences, one needs to understand how evolutionary processes shape genetic diversity. Most population genetic inference is based on frameworks assuming adaptive evolution is rare. But if…
The inheritance of characteristics induced by the environment has often been opposed to the theory of evolution by natural selection. Yet, while evolution by natural selection requires new heritable traits to be produced and transmitted, it…
Positive selection distorts the structure of genealogies and hence alters patterns of genetic variation within a population. Most analyses of these distortions focus on the signatures of hitchhiking due to hard or soft selective sweeps at a…
A major goal of molecular evolutionary biology is to identify loci or regions of the genome under selection versus those evolving in a neutral manner. Correct identification allows accurate inference of the evolutionary process and thus…
Commonly recognized evolutionarily relevant effects of sexual reproduction include increased diversity, accelerated adaptation, and constrained accumulation of deleterious mutations, along with a secondary effect of species genotype…
Genomic approaches have revolutionized medical research, providing valuable insights into human physiology and disease. Despite major benefits from large collections of genomes, the lack of diversity in genomic data represents a significant…
Genome sizes have evolved to vary widely, from 250 bases in viroids to 670 billion bases in amoeba. This remarkable variation in genome size is the outcome of complex interactions between various evolutionary factors such as point mutation…
In order to make a case for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity in biological evolution, complexity needs to be both rigorously defined and measurable. A recent information-theoretic (but intuitively evident) definition…
Following genetic ancestry in eukaryote populations poses several open problems due to sexual reproduction and recombination. The history of extant genetic material is usually modeled backwards in time, but tracking chromosomes at a large…
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…
We review models of biological evolution in which the population frequency changes deterministically with time. If the population is self-replicating, although the equations for simple prototypes can be linearised, nonlinear equations arise…
Modern biological tools have made it possible to unequivocally demonstrate the deep relationship among species in terms of genes and basic molecular mechanisms. In addition, results from genetic, physical and physiological approaches…
Changing base composition during the evolution of biological sequences can mislead some of the phylogenetic inference techniques in current use. However, detecting whether such a process has occurred may be difficult, since convergent…
Biologists have long sought a way to explain how statistical properties of genetic sequences emerged and are maintained through evolution. On the one hand, non-random structures at different scales indicate a complex genome organisation. On…