Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan.
J Biosci. 2009 Oct;34(4):529-42. doi: 10.1007/s12038-009-0072-9.
Questions on possible relationship between phenotypic plasticity and evolvability, and that between robustness and evolution have been addressed over decades in the field of evolution-development. Based on laboratory evolution experiments and numerical simulations of gene expression dynamics model with an evolving transcription network, we propose quantitative relationships on plasticity, phenotypic fluctuations, and evolvability. By introducing an evolutionary stability assumption on the distribution of phenotype and genotype, the proportionality among phenotypic plasticity against environmental change, variances of phenotype fluctuations of genetic and developmental origins, and evolution speed is obtained. The correlation between developmental robustness to noise and evolutionary robustness to mutation is analysed by simulations of the gene network model. These results provide quantitative formulation on canalization and genetic assimilation, in terms of fluctuations of gene expression levels.
几十年来，进化发育领域一直在探讨表型可塑性和进化能力之间以及稳健性和进化之间可能存在的关系。基于实验室进化实验和具有进化转录网络的基因表达动力学模型的数值模拟，我们提出了关于可塑性、表型波动和进化能力的定量关系。通过对表型和基因型分布的进化稳定性假设，我们得到了表型对环境变化的可塑性、遗传和发育起源的表型波动方差以及进化速度之间的比例关系。通过对基因网络模型的模拟，分析了噪声下发育稳健性和突变下进化稳健性之间的相关性。这些结果提供了关于 canalization 和遗传同化的定量表述，即基因表达水平的波动。
