Compensated Deleterious Mutations in Insect Genomes

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1100522
• Publication Date: 2004-10-22T00:25:38Z
• Authors: Rob J. Kulathinal; Brian R. Bettencourt; Daniel L. Hartl
• Keywords: Epistasis; Melanogaster

Relatively little is known about the importance of amino acid interactions in protein and phenotypic evolution. Here we examine whether mutations that are pathogenic Drosophila melanogaster become fixed via epistasis other Dipteran genomes. Overall divergence at sites reduced. However, approximately 10% substitutions these carry exact same found D. mutants. Hence compensatory mutation(s) must have evolved. Surprisingly, fraction not affected by phylogenetic distance. These results support a selection-driven process allows compensated to rapidly taxa with large populations.