ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America1997
Vagaries of the molecular clock.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1997. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- PyEvoMotion: a Python tool for population-based time-course analysis of genome evolution.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Epistatic contributions promote the unification of incompatible models of neutral molecular evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- The Estimated Pacemaker for Great Apes Supports the Hominoid Slowdown Hypothesis.Evolutionary bioinformatics online · 2019Article
- Cryptic diversity in the Japanese mantis shrimp Oratosquilla oratoria (Crustacea: Squillidae): Allopatric diversification, secondary contact and hybridization.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- A combination of long term fragmentation and glacial persistence drove the evolutionary history of the Italian wall lizard Podarcis siculus.BMC evolutionary biology · 2017Article
- What triggers the rising of an intraspecific biodiversity hotspot? Hints from the agile frog.Scientific reports · 2014Article
- Article
- Article
- Evolution of centralized nervous systems: two schools of evolutionary thought.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2012Review
- Ecological niche modelling and nDNA sequencing support a new, morphologically cryptic beetle species unveiled by DNA barcoding.PloS one · 2011Article
- Article
- Relaxed molecular clocks, the bias-variance trade-off, and the quality of phylogenetic inference.Systematic biology · 2010Article
- Old fossils-young species: evolutionary history of an endemic gastropod assemblage in Lake Malawi.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2009Article
- The Genetic Equidistance Result of Molecular Evolution is Independent of Mutation Rates.Journal of computer science and systems biology · 2008Article
- A highly polymorphic insertion in the Y-chromosome amelogenin gene can be used for evolutionary biology, population genetics and sexing in Cetacea and Artiodactyla.BMC genetics · 2008Article
- High incidence of interchromosomal transpositions in the evolutionary history of a subset of or genes in Drosophila.Journal of molecular evolution · 2008Article
- There is no universal molecular clock for invertebrates, but rate variation does not scale with body size.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2006Article
- Relaxed phylogenetics and dating with confidence.PLoS biology · 2006Article
- Molecular adaptation in the ice worm, Mesenchytraeus solifugus: divergence of energetic-associated genes.Journal of molecular evolution · 2004Article
- Selective extinction and rapid loss of evolutionary history in the bird fauna.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2001Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
The hypothesis of the molecular evolutionary clock asserts that informational macromolecules (i.e., proteins and nucleic acids) evolve at rates that are constant through time and for different lineages. The clock hypothesis has been extremely powerful for determining evolutionary events of the remote past for which the fossil and other evidence is lacking or insufficient. I review the evolution of two genes, Gpdh and Sod. In fruit flies, the encoded glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH) protein evolves at a rate of 1.1 x 10(-10) amino acid replacements per site per year when Drosophila species are compared that diverged within the last 55 million years (My), but a much faster rate of approximately 4.5 x 10(-10) replacements per site per year when comparisons are made between mammals ( approximately 70 My) or Dipteran families ( approximately 100 My), animal phyla ( approximately 650 My), or multicellular kingdoms ( approximately 1100 My). The rate of superoxide dismutase (SOD) evolution is very fast between Drosophila species (16.2 x 10(-10) replacements per site per year) and remains the same between mammals (17.2) or Dipteran families (15.9), but it becomes much slower between animal phyla (5.3) and still slower between the three kingdoms (3.3). If we assume a molecular clock and use the Drosophila rate for estimating the divergence of remote organisms, GPDH yields estimates of 2,500 My for the divergence between the animal phyla (occurred approximately 650 My) and 3,990 My for the divergence of the kingdoms (occurred approximately 1,100 My). At the other extreme, SOD yields divergence times of 211 My and 224 My for the animal phyla and the kingdoms, respectively. It remains unsettled how often proteins evolve in such erratic fashion as GPDH and SOD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.