On the role of sparseness in the evolution of modularity in gene regulatory networks

PLoS Computational Biology
C Espinosa-Soto

Abstract

Modularity is a widespread property in biological systems. It implies that interactions occur mainly within groups of system elements. A modular arrangement facilitates adjustment of one module without perturbing the rest of the system. Therefore, modularity of developmental mechanisms is a major factor for evolvability, the potential to produce beneficial variation from random genetic change. Understanding how modularity evolves in gene regulatory networks, that create the distinct gene activity patterns that characterize different parts of an organism, is key to developmental and evolutionary biology. One hypothesis for the evolution of modules suggests that interactions between some sets of genes become maladaptive when selection favours additional gene activity patterns. The removal of such interactions by selection would result in the formation of modules. A second hypothesis suggests that modularity evolves in response to sparseness, the scarcity of interactions within a system. Here I simulate the evolution of gene regulatory networks and analyse diverse experimentally sustained networks to study the relationship between sparseness and modularity. My results suggest that sparseness alone is neither sufficient nor necessa...Continue Reading

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Citations

Aug 21, 2020·American Journal of Botany·Lorenzo Carretero-Paulet, Yves Van de Peer
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Mar 23, 2021·The Plant Cell·Yves Van de PeerDouglas E Soltis

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