Title |
Probing Evolutionary Repeatability: Neutral and Double Changes and the Predictability of Evolutionary Adaptation
|
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Published in |
PLOS ONE, February 2009
|
DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0004500 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Scott William Roy |
Abstract |
The question of how organisms adapt is among the most fundamental in evolutionary biology. Two recent studies investigated the evolution of Escherichia coli in response to challenge with the antibiotic cefotaxime. Studying five mutations in the beta-lactamase gene that together confer significant antibiotic resistance, the authors showed a complex fitness landscape that greatly constrained the identity and order of intermediates leading from the initial wildtype genotype to the final resistant genotype. Out of 18 billion possible orders of single mutations leading from non-resistant to fully-resistant form, they found that only 27 (1.5x10(-7)%) pathways were characterized by consistently increasing resistance, thus only a tiny fraction of possible paths are accessible by positive selection. I further explore these data in several ways. |
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Geographical breakdown
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United States | 3 | 6% |
Spain | 2 | 4% |
United Kingdom | 1 | 2% |
Austria | 1 | 2% |
Unknown | 41 | 85% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 21 | 44% |
Researcher | 14 | 29% |
Student > Master | 5 | 10% |
Professor | 2 | 4% |
Professor > Associate Professor | 1 | 2% |
Other | 1 | 2% |
Unknown | 4 | 8% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 34 | 71% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 4 | 8% |
Computer Science | 2 | 4% |
Psychology | 1 | 2% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 1 | 2% |
Other | 1 | 2% |
Unknown | 5 | 10% |