Published In

Entropy

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-24-2010

Subjects

RNA -- Mathematical models, Genetic recombination, Genotype-environment interaction

Abstract

Recombination is a common event in nature, with examples in physics, chemistry, and biology. This process is characterized by the spontaneous reorganization of structural units to form new entities. Upon reorganization, the complexity of the overall system can change. In particular the components of the system can now experience a new response to externally applied selection criteria, such that the evolutionary trajectory of the system is altered. In this work we explore the link between chemical and biological forms of recombination. We estimate how the net system complexity changes, through analysis of RNA-RNA recombination and by mathematical modeling. Our results underscore the importance of recombination in the origins of life on the Earth and its subsequent evolutionary divergence.

Description

© 2011 by the authors; licensee Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI Publishing), Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

DOI

10.1016/j.cbpa.2009.10.022

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/8397

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