Synthesis of Experimental Molecular Biology and Evolutionary Biology: An Example from the World of Vision

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Shozo Yokoyama, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2012-11
• Publisher: American Institute of Biological Sciences
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2012 by American Institute of Biological Sciences. All rights reserved.
• Final Published Version (URL): http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2012.62.11.3
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: BioScience
• ISSN: 0006-3568
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 11
• Start Page: 939
• End Page: 948
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grant no. R01EY016400 and by Emory University.
• Keywords: quantum chemistry; ancestral phenotypes; visual pigments; molecular adaptation; phenotypic adaptation
• Research Categories: Biology, General; Biology, Molecular

Abstract

Natural selection has played an important role in establishing various phenotypes, but the molecular mechanisms of phenotypic adaptation are not well understood. The slow progress is a consequence of mutagenesis experiments in which present-day molecules were used and of the limited scope of statistical methods used to detect adaptive evolution. To fully appreciate phenotypic adaptation, the precise roles of adaptive mutations during phenotypic evolution must be elucidated through the engineering and manipulation of ancestral phenotypes. Experimental and quantum chemical analyses of dim-light vision reveal some surprising results and provide a foundation for a productive study of the adaptive evolution of various phenotypes.