Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for FY 2000

本行动资助2000年美国国家科学基金会生物信息学博士后研究奖学金。这项研究和培训计划是在发展机制的进化领域，题为“分子、病毒和调节网络的可进化性和模块化”。在RNA二级结构进化的计算研究中，发现了环境诱导和突变诱导表型之间的可塑性一致性。这种相关性，即在热力学波动下RNA序列产生的表型与基因突变产生的表型相对应，具有深远的进化意义，因为RNA序列经历了环境通道化，趋向于更热力学稳定的结构。假设遵循塑生一致性规则，对环境变化具有抗性的表型也必须对突变诱导的变化和随后的新表型具有抗性。从本质上讲，表型将到达进化的死胡同。本研究运用这些原理发展理论框架，通过分析RNA序列数据和人工RNA进化实验，研究异质免疫环境对病毒进化潜力的间接影响和病毒模块化组织的起源。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biological Informatics for 2000.The research and training plan is in the area of Evolution of Developmental Mechanisms and is entitled "Evolvability and Modularity of Molecules, Viruses, and Regulatory Networks". Plastogenetic congruence, a correlation between environment-induced and mutation-induced phenotypes, has been shown by computational studies of RNA secondary structure evolution. This correlation, where phenotypes produced by an RNA sequence under thermodynamic fluctuation mirror those produced by genetic mutation, has profound evolutionary implications as RNA sequences undergo environmental canalization towards more thermodynamically stable structures. Assuming that the rule of plastogenetic congruence is followed, phenotypes that are resistant to environmental changes must also resistant to mutation-induced changes and the ensuing novel phenotypes. Essentially, phenotypes will reach evolutionary dead-ends. This research applies these principles to develop theoretical frameworks in which to study indirect impacts of a heterogeneous immunological environment on viral evolutionary potential and the origin of modular organization in viruses via analysis of RNA sequence data as well as artificial RNA evolutionary experimentation.