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PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 10(2) February 2014

Drinking from the cup of adaptive landscapes: modeling a phenotypic fitness landscape of gene expression to predict epistasis between beneficial mutations.

This image shows a "landscape" carved into a 40-year old pottery mug made by the corresponding author's father. It is reminiscent of the metaphor of adaptive landscapes used to derive intuition about how populations evolve. We examined a series of strains with beneficial mutations affecting the expression of a metabolic pathway under selection. By developing a mathematical model based upon enzyme catalysis and costs of expression – parameterized to single mutants – we could predict the often antagonistic effects of combining beneficial mutations that were individually beneficial. See Chou et al.

Image Credit: Christopher J. Marx

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Drinking from the cup of adaptive landscapes: modeling a phenotypic fitness landscape of gene expression to predict epistasis between beneficial mutations.

This image shows a "landscape" carved into a 40-year old pottery mug made by the corresponding author's father. It is reminiscent of the metaphor of adaptive landscapes used to derive intuition about how populations evolve. We examined a series of strains with beneficial mutations affecting the expression of a metabolic pathway under selection. By developing a mathematical model based upon enzyme catalysis and costs of expression – parameterized to single mutants – we could predict the often antagonistic effects of combining beneficial mutations that were individually beneficial. See Chou et al.

Image Credit: Christopher J. Marx

https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v10.i02.g001