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Also called functionalism. The Darwinian view that many or most physiological and behavioral traits of organisms are adaptations that have evolved for specific functions or for specific reasons (as opposed to being byproducts of the evolution of other traits, consequences of biological constraints, or the result of random variation). adaptive radiation The simultaneous or near-simultaneous ...
The application of physics and chemistry to biological problems led to the development of molecular biology, which is particularly concerned with the flow and consequences of biological information from DNA to proteins. The discovery of the DNA double helix made clear that genes are functionally defined parts of DNA molecules, and that there ...
Gene structure is the organisation of specialised sequence elements within a gene. Genes contain most of the information necessary for living cells to survive and reproduce. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In most organisms, genes are made of DNA, where the particular DNA sequence determines the function of the gene.
Ab Initio gene prediction is an intrinsic method based on gene content and signal detection. Because of the inherent expense and difficulty in obtaining extrinsic evidence for many genes, it is also necessary to resort to ab initio gene finding, in which the genomic DNA sequence alone is systematically searched for certain tell-tale signs of protein-coding genes.
This is the gene described in The Selfish Gene. [9] More thorough discussions of this version of a gene can be found in the articles Genetics and Gene-centered view of evolution. The molecular gene definition is more commonly used across biochemistry, molecular biology, and most of genetics—the gene that is described in terms of DNA sequence. [1]
Bacteriophages have played and continue to play a key role in bacterial genetics and molecular biology. Historically, they were used to define gene structure and gene regulation. Also the first genome to be sequenced was a bacteriophage. However, bacteriophage research did not lead the genomics revolution, which is clearly dominated by ...
Using the evolutionary definition of function (i.e. that a gene is by definition under purifying selection against loss), the preadaptation model assumes that “gene birth is a sudden transition to functionality” [110] that occurs as soon as an ORF acquires a net beneficial effect. In order to avoid being deleterious, newborn genes are ...
Gene mapping or genome mapping describes the methods used to identify the location of a gene on a chromosome and the distances between genes. [2] [3] Gene mapping can also describe the distances between different sites within a gene. The essence of all genome mapping is to place a collection of molecular markers onto their respective positions ...