Year: 2022

EVIDENCE. "The most convincing evidence of parallel genotypic adaptation comes from artificial selection experiments involving microbial populations. In some experiments, up to half of the nucleotide substitutions found in independent lineages under uniform selection are the same." https://lnkd.in/ewvkDjA View in LinkedIn

GENETIC RATIONALE. "Although there are potentially several genomic routes to reach the same phenotypic outcome, it has been suggested that the genomic changes underlying convergent evolution may to some extent be reproducible and that convergent phenotypic traits may commonly arise from the same genetic changes." https://lnkd.in/eBMUXjN View in LinkedIn

DUAL PROCESSES. "Phenotypic convergence is thought to be driven by parallel substitutions coupled with natural selection at the sequence level." https://lnkd.in/ePaKzzU View in LinkedIn

FUNCTION VS SEQUENCE. "The convergent evolution of similar traits in different species could be due to repeated changes at the genetic level or different changes that produce the same phenotypic effect...convergent changes in Hb function generally did not involve parallel substitutions, indicating that repeatability in the evolution of protein function does not require repeatability at the sequence level." (Hb = hemoglobin). https://lnkd.in/eM7WTHC View in LinkedIn

SEQUENCE CHANGES. "It has been suggested that convergent evolution is characterized by convergent or parallel amino acid substitutions at specific amino acid sites in distant organisms." https://lnkd.in/ePaKzzU View in LinkedIn

SELECTION DRIVEN. "Both parallel evolution and convergent evolution provide strong evidence that the derived similarities resulted from adaptation by natural selection, provided the state-space of possible changes is so large that it is improbable that the observed similarities arose by a purely random process." https://lnkd.in/exArCm7 View in LinkedIn

PARALLEL HIV LINEAGES. ""Some pathogens exhibit striking parallel genomic changes, including multiple HIV lineages that substituted similar mutations conferring antiviral drug resistance and several strains of Escherichia coli that independently acquired similar virulence factors by horizontal transfer." http://www.pnas.org/content/103/24/9107.full View in LinkedIn

CONVERGENCE. "Phytoplasmas are pathogenic bacteria that reprogram plant development such that leaf-like structures instead of floral organs develop. Infected plants are sterile and mainly serve to propagate phytoplasmas and thus have been termed ‘zombie plants’. We suggest that SAP54 underwent convergent sequence evolution to mimic the K-domain of its targets. This enabled it to interact with its MADS-domain protein targets and thereby manipulate plant development to its own benefit." https://lnkd.in/eJF3hwd View in LinkedIn

SCALLOP TYPES. "Our results demonstrate that five of the six life habit types exhibited by scallops have evolved multiple times. We identified 17 repeated transitions between life habit classes within the Pectinidae that were the result of both parallel and convergent evolution." http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-11-164 View in LinkedIn

TOXIN RESISTANCE. "The muscular nicotinic cholinergic receptor (nAChR), targeted by snake α-neurotoxins, has evolved in some venom-resistant mammals to no longer bind these toxins. Through phylogenetic analysis of mammalian nAChR sequences, we show that honey badgers, hedgehogs, and pigs have independently acquired functionally equivalent amino acid replacements in the toxin-binding site of this receptor." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041010115000690 View in LinkedIn