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Empirical fitness landscapes reveal accessible evolutionary paths

Abstract

When attempting to understand evolution, we traditionally rely on analysing evolutionary outcomes, despite the fact that unseen intermediates determine its course. A handful of recent studies has begun to explore these intermediate evolutionary forms, which can be reconstructed in the laboratory. With this first view on empirical evolutionary landscapes, we can now finally start asking why particular evolutionary paths are taken.

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Figure 1: Schematic representations of fitness landscape features.
Figure 2: Molecular structures in different evolutionary forms.
Figure 3: Evolution of molecular interactions based on reconstructed intermediates.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Dean, D. Hartl, J. Thornton and W. Vos for critical reading of the manuscript, and S. Tănase-Nicola for discussions. We thank A. Bonvin and R. Salinas for supplying the data for Fig. 2b. This work is part of the research programme of the Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), which is financially supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijke Onderzoek (NWO).

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Correspondence to Sander J. Tans.

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Poelwijk, F., Kiviet, D., Weinreich, D. et al. Empirical fitness landscapes reveal accessible evolutionary paths. Nature 445, 383–386 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05451

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