Mini-symposium 9

Biophysical approaches to genotype-phenotype maps in evolution and speciation

Natural selection acts on phenotypes, yet variation in phenotypes arises from mutations at the genetic level. It is being increasingly recognised that genotype-phenotype maps are a crucial missing ingredient for a full understanding of evolution, even at the qualitative level. As our ability to generate sequence data has become more sophisticated, unfortunately our ability to interpret this data in terms of biological function has not grown in like. A number of recent works have in particular focussed on developing genotype-phenotype maps based on simple biophysical models, and applying these models to, for example, gene regulation (Khatri et al, PNAS, 2009; Stewart et al, PlosCompBiol, 2013), protein stability (Goldstein, Proteins, 2010; Pollock, Thiltgen & Goldstein, PNAS, 2012), protein quaternary structure formation (Greenbury, Johnston, Louis & Ahnert, Interface, 2014) and speciation (Khatri & Goldstein, arxiv, 2013; Tulchinsky, Johnson, Watt & Porter , Genetics, 2014). An emerging theme from these studies is the role of sequence redundancy of phenotypes in such genotype-phenotype maps and how this interplays with the process of genetic drift at small population sizes, giving rise to a population-size dependent evolutionary biases.

Invited speakers

Bhavin Khatri: Evolutionary stochastic dynamics of speciation for a coarse-grained model of protein binding DNA.

Ard Louis: Evolutionary dynamics, the structure of genotype-phenotype maps, and the arrival of the frequent.

Organiser

Richard Goldstein (U College London, UK).