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Why are diploid genomes widespread and dominant mutations rare?

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Abstract

We have used the sexual Penna ageing model to show that the relation between dominance and recessiveness could be a force which optimizes the genome size. While the possibility of complementation of the damaged allele by its functional counterparts (recessiveness) leads to the redundancy of genetic information, the dominant effect of defective genes tends to diminish the number of alleles fulfilling the same function. Playing with the fraction of dominant loci in the genome it is possible to obtain the condition where the diploid state of the genome is optimal. If the status of each bit position as dominant or recessive mutations is changed for each individual randomly and rarely, then after a long time a stationary equilibrium of many recessive and few dominant loci is established in the sexual Penna model. This effect vanishes if the same changing distribution of dominant loci applies to all individuals.

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Acknowledgments

This work was done in the frame of European programs COST P10 and GIACS. SC was supported by Polish Foundation for Science.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genomics, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Wrocław, ul. Przybyszewskiego 63/77, 54148, Wrocław, Poland

    Diana Garncarz, Stanislaw Cebrat & Dietrich Stauffer

  2. Institute for Theoretical Physics, Cologne University, 50923, Köln, Euroland, Germany

    Dietrich Stauffer & Klaus Blindert

Authors
  1. Diana Garncarz
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  2. Stanislaw Cebrat
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  3. Dietrich Stauffer
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  4. Klaus Blindert
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Correspondence to Stanislaw Cebrat.

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Garncarz, D., Cebrat, S., Stauffer, D. et al. Why are diploid genomes widespread and dominant mutations rare?. Theory Biosci. 126, 47–52 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-007-0009-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-007-0009-5

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