Molecular Evolution: Introduction

David Penny, Massey University, Palmerston, New Zealand

Published online: March 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0001701.pub2

Molecular evolution studies the mechanisms leading to present day deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and protein sequences – it is a unifying force in biology.

Keywords: DNA; evolution; neutralism

Figure 1. Repeating the duplication of the haemoglobin and divergence of the two copies, gives the and proteins.
Figure 2. The trichotomy problem.
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 Further Reading
    book Gesteland RF, Cech TR and Atkins JF (eds) (2006) The RNA World, 2nd edn. New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
    Golding GB and Dean AM (1998) The structural basis of molecular adaptation. Molecular Biology and Evolution 15: 355–369.
    Jain R, Rivera MC and Lake JA (1999) Horizontal gene transfer among genomes: the complexity hypothesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 96: 3801–3806.
    Kehrer-Sawatzki H and Cooper DN (2007) Understanding the recent evolution of the human genome: insights from human–chimpanzee comparisons. Human Mutation 28: 99–130.
    book Kimura M (1983) The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    book Li W-H (1997) Molecular Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.
    Murray-McIntosh RP, Scrimshaw BJ, Hatfield PJ and Penny D (1998) Testing migration patterns and estimating founding population size in Polynesia by using human mtDNA sequences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 95: 9047–9052.
    book Page RDM and Holmes E (1998) Molecular Evolution: A Phylogenetic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell Science.
    Penny D (2005) An interpretive review of the origin of life research. Biology and Philosophy 20: 633–671.
    Penny D, Foulds LR and Hendy MD (1982) Testing the theory of evolution by comparing phylogenetic trees constructed from five different protein sequences. Nature 297: 197–200.
    Rainey PB and Travisano M (1998) Adaptive radiation in a heterogeneous environment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 394: 69–72.
    book Terzaghi E, Wilkins AS and Penny D (1984) Molecular Evolution: An Annotated Reader. Boston, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

Related Sub-Topics:

Molecular Evolution | Evolutionary Processes | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
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Article Title: Molecular Evolution: Introduction
 
How to Cite close
Penny, David(Mar 2008) Molecular Evolution: Introduction. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0001701.pub2]