BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:A tractable genotype-phenotype map for biological self-assembly - 
 Dr Sebastian Ahnert ( TCM\, Cavendish Laboratory)
DTSTART:20150514T110000Z
DTEND:20150514T120000Z
UID:TALK59275@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Salvatore Tesoro
DESCRIPTION:The mapping between biological genotypes and phenotypes is cen
 tral to the study of biological evolution. We introduce a rich\, intuitive
  and biologically realistic genotype– phenotype (GP) map that serves as 
 a model of self-assembling biological structures\, such as protein complex
 es\, and remains computationally and analytically tractable. Our GP map ar
 ises naturally from the self-assembly of polyomino structures on a two-dim
 ensional lattice and exhibits a number of properties: redundancy (genotype
 s vastly outnumber phenotypes)\, phenotype bias (genotypic redundancy vari
 es greatly between phenotypes)\, genotype component disconnectivity (pheno
 types consist of disconnected mutational networks) and shape space coverin
 g (most phenotypes can be reached in a small number of mutations). We also
  show that the mutational robustness of phenotypes scales roughly logarith
 mically with phenotype redundancy and is positively correlated with phenot
 ypic evolvability. Although our GP map describes the assembly of disconnec
 ted objects\, it shares many properties with other popular GP maps for con
 nected units\, such as models for RNA secondary structure or the hydrophob
 ic-polar (HP) lattice model for protein tertiary structure. The remarkable
  fact that these important properties similarly emerge from such different
  models suggests the possibility that universal features underlie a much w
 ider class of biologically realistic GP maps. A further property of the po
 lyomino GP map is that the modularity\, symmetry and structural complexity
  of the phenotype can be quantified rigorously. We can therefore use our G
 P map to study the emergence of these phenotypic properties in the course 
 of biological evolution\, and present results on the distribution of compl
 exity in phenotypes\, which are intimately linked with the properties of g
 enotype-phenotype maps.
LOCATION:TCM Seminar room\, 530 Mott building
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR