Origins of the machinery of recombination and sex

Heredity
T Cavalier-Smith

Abstract

Mutation plays the primary role in evolution that Weismann mistakenly attributed to sex. Homologous recombination, as in sex, is important for population genetics--shuffling of minor variants, but relatively insignificant for large-scale evolution. Major evolutionary innovations depend much more on illegitimate recombination, which makes novel genes by gene duplication and by gene chimaerisation--essentially mutational forces. The machinery of recombination and sex evolved in two distinct bouts of quantum evolution separated by nearly 3 Gy of stasis; I discuss their nature and causes. The dominant selective force in the evolution of recombination and sex has been selection for replicational fidelity and viability; without the recombination machinery, accurate reproduction, stasis, resistance to radical deleterious evolutionary change and preservation of evolutionary innovations would be impossible. Recombination proteins betray in their phylogeny and domain structure a key role for gene duplication and chimaerisation in their own origin. They arose about 3.8 Gy ago to enable faithful replication and segregation of the first circular DNA genomes in precellular ancestors of Gram-negative eubacteria. Then they were recruited and m...Continue Reading

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