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Selfish genes, the phenotype paradigm and genome evolution

Nature volume 284, pages 601–603 (1980)Cite this article

Abstract

Natural selection operating within genomes will inevitably result in the appearance of DNAs with no phenotypic expression whose only ‘function’ is survival within genomes. Prokaryotic transposable elements and eukaryotic middle-repetitive sequences can be seen as such DNAs, and thus no phenotypic or evolutionary function need be assigned to them.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 4H7

    W. Ford Doolittle & Carmen Sapienza

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  1. W. Ford Doolittle
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  2. Carmen Sapienza
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Doolittle, W., Sapienza, C. Selfish genes, the phenotype paradigm and genome evolution. Nature 284, 601–603 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/284601a0

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