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PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
4
pubmed:dateCreated
1997-9-19
pubmed:abstractText
Evolution within a rugged fitness landscape is limited by the tendency for organisms to become trapped on local optima resulting in evolutionary stasis. It is presently unclear how founder populations escape from an adaptive peak to found a new species. Insertion sequences, transposons and other mobile DNA elements are found in all species of eukaryotes, bacteria and archaebacteria, where they have been sought and are usually considered to be genomic parasites or selfish genes. However, many transposons and other mobile repetitive DNA are remarkably species or phyla-specific, indicating that infection with transposable elements coincides with speciation events and is involved in promoting evolutionary change. We propose here a model in which transposable elements are involved in speciation events by their ability to produce irreversible deleterious mutations that promote escape from evolutionary stasis. We have constructed a genetic algorithm designed to model both spontaneous and transposon-mediated mutations in populations of asexual digital organisms. We use this model to investigate the effect of transposon-mediated mutations on the rate of evolution of digital organisms as they compete for resources within an artificial adaptive landscape. In the absence of transposon mutations the seed organisms quickly evolve to occupy the nearest adaptive peak but thereafter evolutionary stasis ensues and adjacent empty peaks are left unoccupied. In the presence of transposon mutations, evolution is again dominated by stasis but is punctuated by bursts of rapid evolution in with consecutive unoccupied adaptive peaks are filled with organisms derived from single transposition events. Rapid evolutionary events leading to founding of new biological species, may be similarly initiated by irreversible deleterious mutations induced by transposition.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Jun
pubmed:issn
0022-5193
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:day
21
pubmed:volume
186
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
441-7
pubmed:dateRevised
2010-11-18
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1997
pubmed:articleTitle
Escape from evolutionary stasis by transposon-mediated deleterious mutations.
pubmed:affiliation
School of Biological Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, U.K.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article