A Topological Approach to Modeling Evolution
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"Recent genomic studies have made it clear that evolution does not only proceed in a 'vertical' pattern in which one organism inherits genomic information from the organisms from which it descends (figure A). Scientists now understand that genomic evolution can also be 'horizontal'; that is, genomic information can be transferred between organisms or evolutionarily similar groups of organisms that are in parallel lineages (figure B), such as in cases of species hybridization in eukaryotes, lateral gene transfer in bacteria, recombination and reassortment in viruses, viral integration in eukaryotes, and fusion of genomes of symbiotic species. These observations suggest that phylogenetic trees have limitations in their ability to characterize evolution at the molecular level and that another model is needed that can integrate both vertical and horizontal evolution.”
---CU Systems Biology News
“Topology of viral evolution.”
AUTHORS: Chan JM, Carlsson G, Rabadan R.
LINK TO PUBLICATION:
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2013 Oct 29. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1313480110.