Evolutionary meandering of intermolecular interactions along the drift barrier
Abstract
Many cellular functions depend on highly specific intermolecular interactions, with mutational changes in each component of the interaction imposing coevolutionary pressure on the remaining members (e.g., a transcription factor and its DNA binding sites). The conflict between mutation pressure toward reduced affinity and selective pressure for greater interaction results in an evolutionary equilibrium distribution for the affinity between interacting partners. Nevertheless, conditional on the maintenance of a critical level of molecular recognition, the sites containing the key residues of binding interfaces are free to evolve. The theory developed suggests that most such evolution is a simple consequence of random genetic drift and not an outcome of adaptive fine tuning.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Dec 22, 2014
- Source ID
- 10.1073/pnas.1421641112
Entities
People
- Kyle Hagner
- Michael Lynch
Organizations
- Indiana University
- National Institutes of Health
- National Science Foundation
- United States Department of Defense