This paper is about the \"Global epistasis makes adaptation predictable despite

Question

This paper is about the "Global epistasis makes adaptation predictable despite sequence-level stochasticity" and the link for this study is given below:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4314286/

can you please help me these questions because i'm having a hard time understanding the paper:

Answer the following questions:

1) What is the hypothesis of the paper?

2) Is this a correlative or causative study?

3) How do the authors support their hypothesis?

4) Do you believe the author’s data presented in the paper (and any supplements) support their hypothesis. If not, why not?

5) Are there other experiments or experimental modification that should have been performed by the researchers?

Explanation / Answer

Hi,

The study aims to find out whether the epistatis interactions between the mutations drive the phenotypic convergence. The mutations are non predictable and authors hypothesize that epistatic interactions are far more predictable and can determine predictability of adaption.

To support their claim the authors created several mutants in S. Cereviseae and studied the evolution. They mapped the mutations and identified the fitness cost and benefit offered by each mutations. From these data they inferred that mutations have low beneficial effect in high fitness background. But when these interact in unique ways to increase convergent evolution. They evolved population of varying fitnesses. They show that the population with lower nitial fitness, adapted more rapidly than population with higher initial fitness. These data are interpreted as ways of predictable fitness evolution even with stochastic sequence -level adaptations.

The authors have done several lines of mutations to assess the effect of mutations and adpatability. They have compared modular, idiosyncratic and global epistasis models to determine the correlation. However, the paper is basically a correlation paper and does not answer why and how these mutations shape the evolutonary predictability.

The authors can try our other organisms and other locus to determine if the same would work. Mutation fitness studies under competition from another organism can help assess the directionality of the mutations and might help understand epistasis and its role in increasing the predictability of evolution.

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