 Genotypes with Phenotypes: Adventures in an RNA Toy WorldPeter Schuster Working Papers from Santa Fe Institute Abstract: Evolution has created the complexity of the animate world and deciphering the language of evolution is the key toward understanding nature. The dynamics of evolution is simplified by considering it as a superposition of three less sophisticated processes: population dynamics, population support dynamics, and genotype-phenotype mapping. Evolution of molecules in laboratory assays provides a sufficiently simple system for the quantitative analysis of the three phenomema. Coarse-grained notions of structures like RNA secondary structures are used as model phenotypes. They provide an excellent tool for a comprehensive analysis of the entire complex of molecular evolution. The mapping from RNA genotypes into secondary structures is highly redundant. In order to find at least one sequence for every common structure one need only search a (relatively) small part of sequence space. The existence of selectively neutral phenotypes plays an important role for the success and the efficiency of evolutionary optimization. Molecular evolution found a highly promising technological application in the design of biomolecules with predefined properties. Keywords: Dynamics of evolution; evolutionary biotechnology; fitness landscape; molecular evolution; RNA structure; selective neutrality (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:safiwp:97-04-036 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from Santa Fe Institute Contact information at EDIRC. |
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