Related papers: New structural variation in evolutionary searches …
The relationship between sequences and secondary structures or shapes in RNA exhibits robust statistical properties summarized by three notions: (1) the notion of a typical shape (that among all sequences of fixed length certain shapes are…
Conventional population genetics considers the evolution of a limited number of genotypes corresponding to phenotypes with different fitness. As model phenotypes, in particular RNA secondary structure, have become computationally tractable,…
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 prevalence of neutral mutations implies that biological systems typically have many more genotypes than phenotypes. But can the way that genotypes are distributed over phenotypes determine evolutionary outcomes? Answering such questions…
We view the folding of RNA-sequences as a map that assigns a pattern of base pairings to each sequence, known as secondary structure. These preimages can be constructed as random graphs (i.e. the neutral networks associated to the structure…
RNA viruses form genetically diverse populations structured as mutant spectra, or quasispecies, whose internal organization influences their evolutionary and adaptive dynamics. While genetic diversity has been extensively characterized, the…
Mutational neighbourhoods in genotype-phenotype (GP) maps are widely believed to be more likely to share characteristics than expected from random chance. Such genetic correlations should, as John Maynard Smith famously pointed out,…
Protein structures are much more conserved than sequences during evolution. Based on this observation, we investigate the consequences of structural conservation on protein evolution. We study seven of the most studied protein folds,…
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…
Given a random RNA secondary structure, $S$, we study RNA sequences having fixed ratios of nuclotides that are compatible with $S$. We perform this analysis for RNA secondary structures subject to various base pairing rules and minimum arc-…
We introduce a new model of evolution on a fitness landscape possessing a tunable degree of neutrality. The model allows us to study the general properties of molecular species undergoing neutral evolution. We find that a number of…
Genotype networks are a method used in systems biology to study the "innovability" of a set of genotypes having the same phenotype. In the past they have been applied to determine the genetic heterogeneity, and stability to mutations, of…
Genotype-to-phenotype mappings translate genotypic variations such as mutations into phenotypic changes. Neutrality is the observation that some mutations do not lead to phenotypic changes. Studying the search trajectories in genotypic and…
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…
In this paper we study properties of topological RNA structures, i.e.~RNA contact structures with cross-serial interactions that are filtered by their topological genus. RNA secondary structures within this framework are topological…
A quantitative characterization of the relationship between molecular sequence and structure is essential to improve our understanding of how function emerges. This particular genotype-phenotype map has been often studied in the context of…
Genetic robustness, the preservation of evolved phenotypes against genotypic mutations, is one of the central concepts in evolution. In recent years a large body of work has focused on the origins, mechanisms, and consequences of robustness…
Background: Genotype-phenotype maps provide a meaningful filtration of sequence space and RNA secondary structures are particular such phenotypes. Compatible sequences i.e.~sequences that satisfy the base pairing constraints of a given RNA…
Genetic regulation is a key component in development, but a clear understanding of the structure and dynamics of genetic networks is not yet at hand. In this paper we investigate these properties within an artificial genome model originally…
Genetic regulation is a key component in development, but a clear understanding of the structure and dynamics of genetic networks is not yet at hand. In this work we investigate these properties within an artificial genome model originally…