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Structural properties of genotype-phenotype maps.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Abstract

The map between genotype and phenotype is fundamental to biology. Biological information is stored and passed on in the form of genotypes, and expressed in the form of phenotypes. A growing body of literature has examined a wide range of genotype-phenotype (GP) maps and has established a number of properties that appear to be shared by many GP maps. These properties are 'structural' in the sense that they are properties of the distribution of phenotypes across the point-mutation network of genotypes. They include: a redundancy of genotypes, meaning that many genotypes map to the same phenotypes, a highly non-uniform distribution of the number of genotypes per phenotype, a high robustness of phenotypes and the ability to reach a large number of new phenotypes within a small number of mutational steps. A further important property is that the robustness and evolvability of phenotypes are positively correlated. In this review, I give an overview of the study of GP maps with particular emphasis on these structural properties, and discuss a model that attempts to explain why these properties arise, as well as some of the fundamental ways in which the structure of GP maps can affect evolutionary outcomes.

Description

Keywords

RNA secondary structure, evolvability, genotype, neutral evolution, phenotype, robustness, Animals, Chromosome Mapping, Evolution, Molecular, Genetic Association Studies, Genotype, Models, Genetic, Phenotype

Journal Title

J R Soc Interface

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1742-5689
1742-5662

Volume Title

14

Publisher

The Royal Society
Sponsorship
The Royal Society (uf120247)
Gatsby Charitable Foundation (GAT3395/CCD)