Does Sequence Conservation Provide Evidence for Biological Function?

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Seila Omer¹ ; Timothy J. Harlow¹ ; Johann Peter Gogarten¹ ; ² ; ^{gogarten@uconn.edu}
• 关键词：purifying selection ; prophage ; phage domestication ; gene transfer agents ; selection for function ; dN/dS ; selfish gene
• 刊名：Trends in Microbiology
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：25
• 期：1
• 页码：11-18
• 全文大小：1690 K
• 卷排序：25

文摘

Finding a signature of purifying selection in a gene is usually interpreted as evidence for the gene providing a function that is targeted by natural selection. This opinion offers a very different hypothesis: purifying selection may be due to removing harmful mutations from the population, that is, the gene and its encoded protein become harmful after a mutation occurred, possibly because the mutated protein interferes with the translation machinery, or because of toxicity of the misfolded protein. Finding a signature of purifying selection should not automatically be considered proof of the gene's selectable function.