Chance favors the prepared genome

Abstract

Most descriptions of mutation have emphasized its negative consequences, and randomness with respect to biological function. This book seeks to balance the discussion by emphasizing mechanisms that both diversify the genome and increase the probability that a genome's descendants will survive. This chapter provides a framework for, and overview of, the diverse contributions to this book; these contributions will be stimulating companions, well into the 21st Century, as we work to comprehend the information contained in genomic databases. Genomes that encode "better" amino acid sequences are at a selective advantage. Genomes that generate diversity also are at an advantage to the extent that they can navigate efficiently through the space of possible sequence changes. Biochemical systems that tend to increase the ratio of useful to destructive genetic change may harness preexisting information (horizontal gene transfer, DNA translocation and/or DNA duplication), focus the location, timing, and extent of genetic change, adjust the dynamic range of a gene's activity, and/or sample regulatory connections between sites distributed across the genome. Rejecting entirely random genetic variation as the substrate of genome evolution is not a refutation, but rather provides a deeper understanding, of the theory of natural selection of Darwin and Wallace. The fittest molecular strategies survive, along with descendants of the genomes that encode them.