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closegenomic information limit
Posted by AdamRetchless on 26 Apr 2009 at 18:59 GMT
slow or stop
http://plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004969#article1.body1.sec1.p5
Would the model of genomic information limit (proposed by Lawrence and Roth*) also count as an explanation for how selection could slow genome degradation over time? By this model, as a genome loses genes (as p-endosymbionts often do), the number of mutations per genome decreases as a result of there being fewer mutational targets, resulting in selection becoming more focused on the remaining genes. Applying this model to the data in this paper, the 16S gene may have evolved rapidly during a period when reduced selective power was being applied towards the maintenance of a large genome that had been established when selection was more effective.
*Lawrence, J. G. and J. R. Roth (1999). Genomic flux : genome evolution by gene loss and acquisition. Organization of the Prokaryotic Genome. R. L. Charlebois. Washington, D.C., ASM Press: 263-289.
Incomplete copy online Google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=P28hAzvgVpgC&dq=Organization+of+the+Prokaryotic+Genome&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=WaD0SZCoE8SDtge2lKHFDw&...