ReviewBioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology2015
When natural selection gives gene function the cold shoulder.
Review in BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- RNA variation as the driver of genomic efficiency and phenotypic complexity.International journal of biological sciences · 2026Review
- The Theory of Gene Family Histories.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Gene birth in a model of non-genic adaptation.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Convergent Loss of an EDS1/PAD4 Signaling Pathway in Several Plant Lineages Reveals Coevolved Components of Plant Immunity and Drought Response.The Plant cell · 2020Article
- Males, Outcrossing, and Sexual Selection inGenetics · 2019Review
- Drought adaptation ineLife · 2018Article
- Deep taxon sampling reveals the evolutionary dynamics of novel gene families inGenome research · 2018Article
- Rapid genome shrinkage in a self-fertile nematode reveals sperm competition proteins.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2018Article
- The sclerotic ring of squamates: an evo-devo-eco perspective.Journal of anatomy · 2016Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
It is tempting to invoke organismal selection as perpetually optimizing the function of any given gene. However, natural selection can drive genic functional change without improvement of biochemical activity, even to the extinction of gene activity. Detrimental mutations can creep in owing to linkage with other selectively favored loci. Selection can promote functional degradation, irrespective of genetic drift, when adaptation occurs by loss of gene function. Even stabilizing selection on a trait can lead to divergence of the underlying molecular constituents. Selfish genetic elements can also proliferate independent of any functional benefits to the host genome. Here we review the logic and evidence for these diverse processes acting in genome evolution. This collection of distinct evolutionary phenomena - while operating through easily understandable mechanisms - all contribute to the seemingly counterintuitive notion that maintenance or improvement of a gene's biochemical function sometimes do not determine its evolutionary fate.
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Registered trials
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.