Simulation of gene evolution under directional mutational pressure

Małgorzata Dudkiewicz, Paweł Mackiewicz, Maria Kowalczuk, Dorota Mackiewicz, Aleksandra Nowicka, Natalia Polak, Kamila Smolarczyk, Joanna Banaszak, Mirosław R. Dudek and Stanisław Cebrat

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2004, vol. 336, issue 1, 63-73

Abstract: The two main mechanisms generating the genetic diversity, mutation and recombination, have random character but they are biased which has an effect on the generation of asymmetry in the bacterial chromosome structure and in the protein coding sequences. Thus, like in a case of two chiral molecules—the two possible orientations of a gene in relation to the topology of a chromosome are not equivalent. Assuming that the sequence of a gene may oscillate only between certain limits of its structural composition means that the gene could be forced out of these limits by the directional mutation pressure, in the course of evolution. The probability of the event depends on the time the gene stays under the same mutation pressure. Inversion of the gene changes the directional mutational pressure to the reciprocal one and hence it changes the distance of the gene to its lower and upper bound of the structural tolerance. Using Monte Carlo methods we were able to simulate the evolution of genes under experimentally found mutational pressure, assuming simple mechanisms of selection. We found that the mutation and recombination should work in accordance to lower their negative effects on the function of the products of coding sequences.

Keywords: Sense strand; DNA asymmetry; Coding; Evolution; Mutation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437104000342
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:336:y:2004:i:1:p:63-73

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2004.01.011

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().