Adaptive noise

Author:

Viney Mark1,Reece Sarah E.2

Affiliation:

1. School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UG, UK

2. Centre for Immunity, and the Infection and Evolution, Institutes of Evolution, Immunology and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK

Abstract

In biology, noise implies error and disorder and is therefore something which organisms may seek to minimize and mitigate against. We argue that such noise can be adaptive. Recent studies have shown that gene expression can be noisy, noise can be genetically controlled, genes and gene networks vary in how noisy they are and noise generates phenotypic differences among genetically identical cells. Such phenotypic differences can have fitness benefits, suggesting that evolution can shape noise and that noise may be adaptive. For example, gene networks can generate bistable states resulting in phenotypic diversity and switching among individual cells of a genotype, which may be a bet hedging strategy. Here, we review the sources of noise in gene expression, the extent to which noise in biological systems may be adaptive and suggest that applying evolutionary rigour to the study of noise is necessary to fully understand organismal phenotypes.

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine

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