Population Genetics of Translational Robustness

Recent work has shown that expression level is the main predictor of a gene's evolutionary rate and that more highly expressed genes evolve slower. A possible explanation for this observation is selection for proteins that fold properly despite mistranslation, in short selection for translation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Genetics (Austin) 2006-05, Vol.173 (1), p.473-481
Main Authors: Wilke, Claus O, Drummond, D. Allan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Carbon dioxide
Errors
Evolution, Molecular
Genes
Genetics, Population
Investigations
Models, Genetic
Mutation
Population genetics
Protein Biosynthesis - genetics
Protein synthesis
Proteins
Proteins - genetics
Studies
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Summary:Recent work has shown that expression level is the main predictor of a gene's evolutionary rate and that more highly expressed genes evolve slower. A possible explanation for this observation is selection for proteins that fold properly despite mistranslation, in short selection for translational robustness. Translational robustness leads to the somewhat paradoxical prediction that highly expressed genes are extremely tolerant to missense substitutions but nevertheless evolve very slowly. Here, we study a simple theoretical model of translational robustness that allows us to gain analytic insight into how this paradoxical behavior arises.
ISSN:0016-6731
1943-2631
1943-2631
DOI:10.1534/genetics.105.051300