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Evolution

The right background for sex

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 2, page 913 (2001)Cite this article

The thinking and the experimental design behind the experiments in this paper are as follows. A mutation that arises on a non-recombining background has little say on the genetic company in which it finds itself. This is bad news for a mildly advantageous mutation, which can only hope to be fixed (that is, achieve a frequency of 100%) if it arises in a genome at the higher end of the reproductive fitness scale. If it doesn't, the advantage conferred by the mutation will be swamped by the overall low fitness of the genome in which it occurs. The same mutation occurring in a sexually reproducing genome, however, has more opportunities to sample different genetic environments — those produced through recombination — and to land in ones in which its success is unhindered by an unfavourable genetic background. This idea predicts that the frequency of a beneficial mutation will increase when propagated in a recombining versus a non-recombining lineage.

Using Drosophila, the authors followed the success of a beneficial white + allele (conferring red eyes) as it was passed down through ten generations of white− (white-eyed) flies that were either recombining or non-recombining. Non-recombining flies were obtained by manipulating the female genome so that it propagated itself clonally (Drosophila males normally do not recombine). The experiment — repeated 34 times — invariably showed that the white+ allele accumulated more rapidly in the sexual population, supporting the idea that sex is advantageous because it accelerates adaptive evolution.

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References

  1. ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER Rice, W. M. & Chippindale, A. K. Sexual recombination and the power of natural selection. Science 294, 555–559 (2001)

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  2. FURTHER READING Lenski, R. E. Come fly, and leave the baggage behind. Science 294, 533–534 (2001)

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Authors
  1. Tanita Casci
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Casci, T. The right background for sex. Nat Rev Genet 2, 913 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35103530

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