IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v440y2006i7080d10.1038_nature04488.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sexual reproduction selects for robustness and negative epistasis in artificial gene networks

Author

Listed:
  • Ricardo B. R. Azevedo

    (University of Houston)

  • Rolf Lohaus

    (University of Houston)

  • Suraj Srinivasan

    (University of Houston)

  • Kristen K. Dang

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

  • Christina L. Burch

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Abstract

How sex stays in fashion The origin and persistence of sexual reproduction in living organisms remains one of the deepest mysteries of biology. Although several plausible theories have been proposed, they make predictions that are hard to test in real life. But an experiment run in an artificial gene network model shows that a condition postulated by a leading theory, the mutation deterministic hypothesis, may evolve more easily than was thought. The condition, negative epistasis, is one in which gene mutations are more harmful when combined in the same genome than when separate. In fact the model suggests that negative epistasis can actually evolve as a consequence of sexual reproduction itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Ricardo B. R. Azevedo & Rolf Lohaus & Suraj Srinivasan & Kristen K. Dang & Christina L. Burch, 2006. "Sexual reproduction selects for robustness and negative epistasis in artificial gene networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7080), pages 87-90, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:440:y:2006:i:7080:d:10.1038_nature04488
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04488
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature04488?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Javier Santos-Moreno & Eve Tasiudi & Hadiastri Kusumawardhani & Joerg Stelling & Yolanda Schaerli, 2023. "Robustness and innovation in synthetic genotype networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Campos, Paulo R.A. & de Oliveira, Viviane M. & Rosas, Alexandre, 2010. "Epistasis and environmental heterogeneity in the speciation process," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(21), pages 2546-2554.
    3. Stefano Ciliberti & Olivier C Martin & Andreas Wagner, 2007. "Robustness Can Evolve Gradually in Complex Regulatory Gene Networks with Varying Topology," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(2), pages 1-10, February.
    4. Manuel Beltrán Del Río & Christopher R. Stephens & David A. Rosenblueth, 2015. "Fitness Landscape Epistasis And Recombination," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(07n08), pages 1-38, November.
    5. Liberman, Uri & Feldman, Marcus, 2008. "On the evolution of epistasis III: The haploid case with mutation," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 307-316.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:440:y:2006:i:7080:d:10.1038_nature04488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.