Contingency and entrenchment in protein evolution under purifying selection
Abstract
How large a role does history play in evolution? Do later events depend critically on specific earlier events, or do all events occur more or less independently? If a change occurs early in evolution, does it become easier or harder to revert the change as time proceeds? Here, we explore these ideas in the context of protein evolution, by simulating sequence evolution under purifying selection and then systematically permuting the order of amino acid substitutions. Our results suggest that the amino acid substitutions that occur in evolution are typically contingent on the presence of prior substitutions, and that substitutions that occur early in evolution become entrenched and difficult to modify as subsequent substitutions accrue.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jun 08, 2015
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1412933112
Entities
People
- David M. Mccandlish
- Joshua B. Plotkin
- Premal Shah
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- Burroughs Wellcome Fund
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- United States Department of the Interior
- University of Pennsylvania