Kafri Ran, Springer Michael, Pilpel Yitzhak
Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Cell. 2009 Feb 6;136(3):389-92. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.01.027.
Many crucial components of signal transduction, developmental, and metabolic pathways have functionally redundant copies. Further, these redundancies show surprising evolutionary stability over prolonged time scales. We propose that redundancies are not just archeological leftovers of ancient gene duplications, but rather that synergy arising from feedback between redundant copies may serve as an information processing element that facilitates signal transduction and the control of gene expression.
信号转导、发育和代谢途径的许多关键组成部分都有功能冗余的副本。此外,这些冗余在长时间尺度上表现出惊人的进化稳定性。我们提出,冗余不仅仅是古代基因复制的遗留物,而是冗余副本之间的反馈产生的协同作用可能作为一种信息处理元件,促进信号转导和基因表达的控制。