In Silico Evolution of Gene Cooption in Pattern-Forming Gene Networks
Figure 1
Three ways to introduce gene recruits for cooption in matrix-based models (gene-gene interaction, see Figure 2 below) of GRN evolution in silico. (a) Static determination of recruits. Initial population has fixed numbers of obligatory (2) and additional (recruited) genes. Only the obligatory genes are used to fit the data. The number of the recruits does not change in a given GRN or its descendants during evolution. The matrix dimension here is. (b) Dynamic addition of recruits. A Gene Introduction operator adds new genes to the GRNs during the evolutionary search. Gene Introduction can be complemented by a Gene Withdrawal operator. (c) Dynamic evolutionary forcing by transposons. A set of transposon and transposition operators forces evolutionary search via a restriction of evolutionary space (e.g., by zeroing the elements of the column of the matrix, Figure 2). With evolutionary time, transposons (transposable elements, TE) form one-dimensional clusters of length (TE-length = ).
