Bridging the physical scales in evolutionary biology: from protein sequence space to fitness of organisms and populations.
Bridging the gap between the molecular properties of proteins and organismal/population fitness is essential for understanding evolutionary processes. This task requires the integration of the several physical scales of biological organization, each defined by a distinct set of mechanisms and constraints, into a single unifying model. The molecular scale is dominated by the constraints imposed by the physico-chemical properties of proteins and their substrates, which give rise to trade-offs and epistatic (non-additive) effects of mutations. At the systems scale, biological networks modulate protein expression and can either buffer or enhance the fitness effects of mutations. The population scale is influenced by the mutational input, selection regimes, and stochastic changes affecting the size and structure of populations, which eventually determine the evolutionary fate of mutations. Here, we summarize the recent advances in theory, computer simulations, and experiments that advance our understanding of the links between various physical scales in biology.
Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84501, Israel.
Shimon
S
Bershtein
Département de Biochimie, Centre Robert-Cedergren en Bioinformatique & Génomique, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada.
Adrian Wr
AW
Serohijos
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States. Electronic address: eugene@belok.harvard.edu.
Eugene I
EI
Shakhnovich
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001703:Biophysics / Q000379:methods*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005828:Genetics, Population; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
D011506:Proteins