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

Ricardo B. R. Azevedo (), Rolf Lohaus, Suraj Srinivasan, Kristen K. Dang and Christina L. Burch
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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

Nature, 2006, vol. 440, issue 7080, 87-90

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.

Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1038/nature04488

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