Intranuclear conflict and its role in evolution

Abstract

The last 20 years have seen the accumulation of a large body of information on selfish genetic elements - genes that act to further their own evolutionary interests at a cost to the individual (genome) bearing them. During the last few years, a growing number of authors have suggested that the intragenomic conflict these elements create is not just an intriguing example of natural selection in action, but a driving force behind the evolution of genetic systems. A host of phenomena, from exquisite details of gene expression to the evolution of crossing over, from the existence of syncytia during gametogenesis to the amount of DNA present in eukaryotes and the existence of multicopy genes, may all be explicable as the result of conflict within the nuclear genome.