ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2010
Genomic patterns of pleiotropy and the evolution of complexity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 121 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
121 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 272 citations in OpenAlex.
- A genome-wide association study of atopic dermatitis identifies loci with overlapping effects on asthma and psoriasis.Human molecular genetics · 2013Pooled it
- A comprehensive analysis of shared loci between systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and sixteen autoimmune diseases reveals limited genetic overlap.PLoS genetics · 2011Pooled it
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- Module-Selection Balance in the Evolution of Modular Organisms.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The Genetic Architecture of Venom Resistance: A Novel Approach to Target Identification and Coevolutionary Discovery.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Interpreting the functional impact of genetic variants: The need for context qualifiers.American journal of human genetics · 2026Review
- Estimates of molecular convergence reveal multiple genes with adaptive variation across teleost fish.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Whole-Genome Duplication Reshapes Adaptation: Autotetraploid Arabidopsis arenosa Leverages its High Genetic Variation to Compensate for Selection Constraints.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Effect of Mutations on the Evolution of Extended Spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL).The protein journal · 2025Review
- Flexibility in Gene Coexpression at Developmental and Evolutionary Timescales.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Functional Determinants and Evolutionary Consequences of Pleiotropy in Complex and Mendelian Traits.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Network architecture of transcriptomic stress responses in zebrafish embryos.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Alternative Mutational Architectures Producing Identical M-Matrices can Lead to Different Patterns of Evolutionary Divergence.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Pleiotropic function of Dlx5/6 in the development of mammalian vocal and auditory organs.PloS one · 2025Article
- Repeated global adaptation across plant species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- A high-resolution two-step evolution experiment in yeast reveals a shift from pleiotropic to modular adaptation.PLoS biology · 2024Article
61 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Pleiotropy refers to the phenomenon of a single mutation or gene affecting multiple distinct phenotypic traits and has broad implications in many areas of biology. Due to its central importance, pleiotropy has also been extensively modeled, albeit with virtually no empirical basis. Analyzing phenotypes of large numbers of yeast, nematode, and mouse mutants, we here describe the genomic patterns of pleiotropy. We show that the fraction of traits altered appreciably by the deletion of a gene is minute for most genes and the gene-trait relationship is highly modular. The standardized size of the phenotypic effect of a gene on a trait is approximately normally distributed with variable SDs for different genes, which gives rise to the surprising observation of a larger per-trait effect for genes affecting more traits. This scaling property counteracts the pleiotropy-associated reduction in adaptation rate (i.e., the "cost of complexity") in a nonlinear fashion, resulting in the highest adaptation rate for organisms of intermediate complexity rather than low complexity. Intriguingly, the observed scaling exponent falls in a narrow range that maximizes the optimal complexity. Together, the genome-wide observations of overall low pleiotropy, high modularity, and larger per-trait effects from genes of higher pleiotropy necessitate major revisions of theoretical models of pleiotropy and suggest that pleiotropy has not only allowed but also promoted the evolution of complexity.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.