Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2011 Aug;22(4):595-600. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2011.03.006. Epub 2011 Apr 12.
Evolution results from molecular-level changes in an organism, thereby producing novel phenotypes and, eventually novel species. However, changes in a single gene can lead to significant changes in biomolecular networks through the gain and loss of many molecular interactions. Thus, significant insights into microbial evolution have been gained through the analysis and comparison of reconstructed metabolic networks. However, challenges remain from reconstruction incompleteness and the inability to experiment with evolution on the timescale necessary for new species to arise. Despite these challenges, experimental laboratory evolution of microbes has provided some insights into the cellular objectives underlying evolution, under the constraints of nutrient availability and the use of mechanisms that protect cells from extreme conditions.
进化源于生物体在分子水平上的变化，从而产生新的表型，最终产生新的物种。然而，单个基因的变化可能会通过增加和减少许多分子相互作用，导致生物分子网络的重大变化。因此，通过对重建的代谢网络进行分析和比较，人们对微生物进化有了更深入的了解。然而，重建不完整和无法在新物种产生所需的时间尺度上进行进化实验仍然存在挑战。尽管存在这些挑战，但在营养物质可用性的限制下，以及利用能够保护细胞免受极端条件影响的机制，微生物的实验性实验室进化为我们提供了一些关于进化背后的细胞目标的见解。
