PLoS Computational Biology (Jan 2012)

Bringing molecules back into molecular evolution.

  • Claus O Wilke

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002572
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 6
p. e1002572

Abstract

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Much molecular-evolution research is concerned with sequence analysis. Yet these sequences represent real, three-dimensional molecules with complex structure and function. Here I highlight a growing trend in the field to incorporate molecular structure and function into computational molecular-evolution work. I consider three focus areas: reconstruction and analysis of past evolutionary events, such as phylogenetic inference or methods to infer selection pressures; development of toy models and simulations to identify fundamental principles of molecular evolution; and atom-level, highly realistic computational modeling of molecular structure and function aimed at making predictions about possible future evolutionary events.