WHAT INTRONS HAVE TO TELL US - HIERARCHY IN GENOME EVOLUTION
WHAT INTRONS HAVE TO TELL US - HIERARCHY IN GENOME EVOLUTION
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DOI：
10.1101/sqb.1987.052.01.099
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发表时间：
1987-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
DOOLITTLE, WF
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
DOOLITTLE, WF
我在这里认为，（1）虽然作为分子生物学家，我们经常分配“进化功能”的基因组的一部分，大多数这样的功能不能在现代科学的信条理解。（2）新达尔文主义的综合是迄今为止分子生物学事实被解决的唯一理论框架;（3）只有当我们确认了生物等级的现实--一个不同组织层次的实体（基因、生物体、种群，或物种）独立地经历进化排序过程，如选择--我相信，在基于分子数据的进化推测中，对这些问题的困惑已经一次又一次地出现了，关于重复DNA的意义和内含子起源的争论就是最近的两个例子。我将详细回顾这些争论，以使读者相信这种混乱是普遍的。然后，我将试图说明，如果我们接受等级观点，这种混乱是如何得到缓解的。
I argue here that (1) although as molecular biologists we often assign" evolutionary functions" to parts of genomes, most such functions cannot be understood within the tenets of the modern (neo-Darwinian) synthesis;(2) that neo-Darwinian synthesis is the only theoretical framework within which the facts of molecular biology have been addressed to date; and (3) it is only when we affirm the reality of a biological hierarchy--a hierarchy in which entities at different organizational levels (genes, organisms, populations, or species) independently experience evolutionary sorting processes such as selection--that such evolutionary functions make sense.Confusion about such issues has, I believe, cropped up over and over in evolutionary speculations stemming from molecular data, the debates over the meaning of repetitive DNAs and the origins of introns being two recent examples. I will review these debates at some length, in an effort to convince the reader that this confusion is a general one. I will then attempt to show how this confusion can be relieved if we accept hierarchical views.