2009/03/12 by Pierre-Alexis Gros, Hervé Le Nagard, Olivier Tenaillon · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Social Sciences · Medicine · #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation #Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models
paper · pdf · doi:10.1534/genetics.108.099127
openalex publication_date 2009/03/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The epistatic interactions among mutations have a large effect on the evolution of populations. In this article we provide a formalism under which epistatic interactions among pairs of mutations have a distribution whose mean can be modulated. We find that the mean epistasis is correlated to the effect of mutations or genetic robustness, which suggests that such formalism is in good agreement with most in silico models of evolution where the same pattern is observed. We further show that the evolution of epistasis is highly dependant on the intensity of drift and of how complex the organisms are, and that either positive or negative epistasis could be selected for, depending on the balance between the efficiency of selection and the intensity of drift.