criticality is an emergent property of genetic networks that exhibit evolvability临界也是突现的基因网络,具有可发展性.pdfVIP

Criticality Is an Emergent Property of Genetic Networks that Exhibit Evolvability 1,2 3 2,4 Christian Torres-Sosa , Sui Huang , Maximino Aldana * ´ ´ ´ ´ ´ ´ 1 Instituto de Biotecnologıa Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, 2 Instituto de Ciencias Fısicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de ´ ´ Mexico, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, 3 Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, Washington, United States of America, 4 FAS Center for Systems Biology and Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America Abstract Accumulating experimental evidence suggests that the gene regulatory networks of living organisms operate in the critical phase, namely, at the transition between ordered and chaotic dynamics. Such critical dynamics of the network permits the coexistence of robustness and flexibility which are necessary to ensure homeostatic stability (of a given phenotype) while allowing for switching between multiple phenotypes (network states) as occurs in development and in response to environmental change. However, the mechanisms through which genetic networks evolve such critical behavior have remained elusive. Here we present an evolutionary model in which criticality naturally emerges from the need to balance between the two essential components of evolvability: phenotype conservation and phenotype innovation under mutations. We simulated the Darwinian evolution of random Boolean networks that mutate gene regulatory interaction