Molecular evolution articles from across Nature Portfolio

The 2023 monkeypox outbreak was caused by a subclade IIb monkeypox virus (MPXV). Here, using advanced sequencing techniques, the authors identify variations on low-complexity regions of the MPXV genome and describe their potential as evolutionary drivers.

Reynolds and colleagues examine a biochemically-mediated epistatic interaction between metabolic enzymes involved in folate metabolism and show that biochemical coupling shapes the range of enzyme activities sufficient to rescue cell growth.

Trait correlations impact evolvability as selection on one trait can influence others. Here, the authors examine trait correlation in two proteins, a fluorescent protein & an antibiotic resistance enzyme, observing rapid evolution of trait correlations through changes in the biophysical properties of these proteins.

Grasses share a whole-genome duplication called rho, but the adaptive implications are unclear. Here, the authors conduct phylogenomic and phylotranscriptomic analyses of 363 grasses, identifying additional whole-genome duplications and finding that duplicates are implicated in environmental adaptations or morphogenesis.

SARS-CoV-2 constantly evolves but the roles of resulting mutations are not always clear. In this study, the authors report that ORF8 knockout confers a fitness advantage to SARS-CoV-2 using genomic surveillance data, highlighting how different types of adaptations across the SARS-CoV-2 genome can drive variant fitness.

Naked mole-rats are long-lived rodents with remarkable resistance to cancer. Here authors show that their T-cell compartment is different from that of mice in that they have a large population of circulating cytotoxic γδ T cells harboring a dominant clonotype, and the clonotypic diversity of their conventional cytotoxic αβ T cells is more modest than that of mice.

In this Journal Club, Hajk-Georg Drost highlights a recent study by Pavlopoulos et al. that organizes proteins at tree-of-life scale using massively parallel graph-based clustering.

Carl G. de Boer highlights a recent paper by Lim et al. on the importance low-affinity transcription factor-binding sites for determining organismal phenotypes.

Li Zhao recalls a 2006 paper by Levine et al. that, by identifying a handful of de novo genes, outlined a potentially universal process of de novo gene birth and propelled forward this field of research.

A recent study demonstrated the existence of mutations that facilitate access to efficient evolutionary solutions. Here I discuss the implications of this finding and the potential to open a new chapter in the study of evolvability.