Related papers: Compensatory mutations cause excess of antagonisti…

We investigate the relationship between the average fitness decay due to single mutations and the strength of epistatic interactions in genetic sequences. We observe that epistatic interactions between mutations are correlated to the…

In epistatic fitness landscapes, the fitness effect of a mutation depends on the genetic background and may even switch between deleterious and beneficial depending on the presence of another mutation. Epistatic interactions may cause both…

The contribution to an organism's phenotype from one genetic locus may depend upon the status of other loci. Such epistatic interactions among loci are now recognized as fundamental to shaping the process of adaptation in evolving…

Epistatic interactions between mutations add substantial complexity to adaptive landscapes, and are often thought of as detrimental to our ability to predict evolution. Yet, patterns of global epistasis, in which the fitness effect of a…

In evolution, the effects of a single deleterious mutation can sometimes be compensated for by a second mutation which recovers the original phenotype. Such epistatic interactions have implications for the structure of genome space -…

The mutation rate of a well adapted population is prone to reduction so as to have a lower mutational load. We aim to understand the role of epistatic interactions between the fitness affecting mutations in this process. Using a multitype…

Epistasis occurs when the effect of a mutation depends on its carrier's genetic background. Despite increasing evidence that epistasis for fitness is common, its role during evolution is contentious. Fitness landscapes, mappings of genotype…

It has recently been noted that the relative prevalence of the various kinds of epistasis varies along an adaptive walk. This has been explained as a result of mean regression in NK model fitness landscapes. Here we show that this…

Genotypic fitness landscapes are constructed by assessing the fitness of all possible combinations of a given number of mutations. In the last years, several experimental fitness landscapes have been completely resolved. As fitness…

Evolving systems, be it an antibody repertoire in the face of mutating pathogens or a microbial population exposed to varied antibiotics, constantly search for adaptive solutions in time-varying fitness landscapes. Generalists correspond to…

Protein fitness landscapes frequently exhibit epistasis, where the effect of a mutation depends on the genetic context in which it occurs, i.e., the rest of the protein sequence. Epistasis increases landscape complexity, often resulting in…

Genetic interactions can strongly influence the fitness effects of individual mutations, yet the impact of these epistatic interactions on evolutionary dynamics remains poorly understood. Here we investigate the evolutionary role of…

The genotype-fitness map plays a fundamental role in shaping the dynamics of evolution. However, it is difficult to directly measure a fitness landscape in practice, because the number of possible genotypes is astronomical. One approach is…

We investigate the fitness advantage associated with the robustness of a phenotype against deleterious mutations using deterministic mutation-selection models of quasispecies type equipped with a mesa shaped fitness landscape. We obtain…

A common view in evolutionary biology is that mutation rates are minimised. However, studies in combinatorial optimisation and search have shown a clear advantage of using variable mutation rates as a control parameter to optimise the…

Epistasis refers to the phenomenon in which phenotypic consequences caused by mutation of one gene depend on one or more mutations at another gene. Epistasis is critical for understanding many genetic and evolutionary processes, including…

An important question in molecular evolution is whether an amino acid that occurs at a given position makes an independent contribution to fitness, or whether its effect depends on the state of other loci in the organism's genome, a…

The nature of epistasis has important consequences for the evolutionary significance of sex and recombination. Recent efforts to find negative epistasis as source of negative linkage disequilibrium and associated long-term sex advantage…

We investigate the effect of spatial range expansions on the evolution of fitness when beneficial and deleterious mutations co-segregate. We perform individual-based simulations of a uniform linear habitat and complement them with…

The concept of a fitness landscape is a powerful metaphor that offers insight into various aspects of evolutionary processes and guidance for the study of evolution. Until recently, empirical evidence on the ruggedness of these landscapes…