Literature DB >> 3657214

Dominance is not inevitable.

A Cornish-Bowden1.   

Abstract

In a diploid organism, a mutant gene that results in elimination of an enzyme activity in the homozygote is almost universally found to be recessive, so that the heterozygote phenotype is virtually indistinguishable from the wild type. It has been argued (H. Kacser & J. A. Burns, Genetics 97, 639-666 (1981)) that there is no need to look to evolution for an explanation of this phenomenon, as it is an inevitable consequence of the low control coefficients for metabolic flux possessed by nearly all enzymes. However, it is possible to envisage pathways in which every enzyme is more than half-saturated, so that moderate changes in the concentration of any enzyme result in substantial changes in metabolic flux. Such behaviour can occur, for example, if the limiting rates of the enzymes decrease as one proceeds along the pathway and the precursor concentration is large compared with the Michaelis constants of all the enzymes. Consequently one does require an explanation in terms of natural selection of why such pathways are apparently not observed in nature.

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Year:  1987        PMID: 3657214     DOI: 10.1016/s0022-5193(87)80065-6

Source DB:  PubMed          Journal:  J Theor Biol        ISSN: 0022-5193            Impact factor:   2.691


  5 in total

1.  Evolution of dominance in metabolic pathways.

Authors:  Homayoun C Bagheri; Günter P Wagner
Journal:  Genetics       Date:  2004-11       Impact factor: 4.562

2.  Constraints on reciprocal flux sensitivities in biochemical reaction networks.

Authors:  Guy Shinar; Avi Mayo; Haixia Ji; Martin Feinberg
Journal:  Biophys J       Date:  2011-03-16       Impact factor: 4.033

3.  Dominance of insecticide resistance presents a plastic response.

Authors:  D Bourguet; M Prout; M Raymond
Journal:  Genetics       Date:  1996-05       Impact factor: 4.562

4.  Dominance, pleiotropy and metabolic structure.

Authors:  P D Keightley; H Kacser
Journal:  Genetics       Date:  1987-10       Impact factor: 4.562

5.  Frail hypotheses in evolutionary biology.

Authors:  Jacques Ninio
Journal:  PLoS Genet       Date:  2010-09-16       Impact factor: 5.917

  5 in total

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