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Quantitative Biology > Molecular Networks
Title: Evolution enhances mutational robustness and suppresses the emergence of a new phenotype: A new computational approach for studying evolution
(Submitted on 5 Dec 2020 (v1), last revised 20 Jan 2022 (this version, v5))
Abstract: The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, we propose a new computational method to investigate the particularities of evolution. Second, we apply this method to a model of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) and explore the evolution of mutational robustness and bistability. Living systems have developed their functions through evolutionary processes. To understand the particularities of this process theoretically, evolutionary simulation (ES) alone is insufficient because the outcomes of ES depend on evolutionary pathways. We need a reference system for comparison. An appropriate reference system for this purpose is an ensemble of the randomly sampled genotypes. However, generating high-fitness genotypes by simple random sampling is difficult because such genotypes are rare. In this study, we used the multicanonical Monte Carlo method developed in statistical physics to construct a reference ensemble of GRNs and compared it with the outcomes of ES. We obtained the following results. First, mutational robustness was significantly higher in ES than in the reference ensemble at the same fitness level. Second, the emergence of a new phenotype, bistability, was delayed in evolution. Third, the bistable group of GRNs contains many mutationally fragile GRNs compared with those in the non-bistable group. This suggests that the delayed emergence of bistability is a consequence of the mutation-selection mechanism.
Submission history
From: Macoto Kikuchi [view email][v1] Sat, 5 Dec 2020 13:28:37 GMT (901kb)
[v2] Sun, 15 Aug 2021 07:12:44 GMT (881kb)
[v3] Tue, 2 Nov 2021 03:30:14 GMT (883kb)
[v4] Thu, 16 Dec 2021 06:49:26 GMT (891kb)
[v5] Thu, 20 Jan 2022 06:53:55 GMT (1095kb)
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