Comprehensive experimental fitness landscape and evolutionary network for small RNA
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Jimenez_2013_Comprehensive-experimental-fitness.pdf
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Author(s)
Jimenez Zarco, Jose I.
Xulvi-Brunet, Ramon
Campbell, Gregory W.
Turk-MacLeod, Rebecca
Chen, Irene A.
Date Issued
September 2013
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
Citation
Jimenez, J. I., R. Xulvi-Brunet, G. W. Campbell, R. Turk-MacLeod, and I. A. Chen. “Comprehensive Experimental Fitness Landscape and Evolutionary Network for Small RNA.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 37 (August 26, 2013): 14984–14989.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The origin of life is believed to have progressed through an RNA world, in which RNA acted as both genetic material and functional molecules. The structure of the evolutionary fitness landscape of RNA would determine natural selection for the first functional sequences. Fitness landscapes are the subject of much speculation, but their structure is essentially unknown. Here we describe a comprehensive map of a fitness landscape, exploring nearly all of sequence space, for short RNAs surviving selection in vitro. With the exception of a small evolutionary network, we find that fitness peaks are largely isolated from one another, highlighting the importance of historical contingency and indicating that natural selection would be constrained to local exploration in the RNA world.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1307604110
