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The Evolution of Evolvability in Gene Transcription Networks

We present a case of a genotype-phenotype map, that when evolved in variable environments optimizes its genetic representation to structure phenotypic variability properties, allowing rapid adaptation to novel environments. How genetic representations evolved is a relatively neglected topic in evolutionary theory. Furthermore, the “black art” of genetic algorithms depends on the practitioner to choose a representation that captures problem structure. Nature has achieved remarkably efficient heuristic search mechanisms without top-down design. We propose that an important example of this, ubiquitous in biology is the structuring of the phenotypic variability properties of gene networks. By studying a simple model of gene networks in which topology is a function of interactions between transcription factor proteins and transcription factor binding sites (TFBS), we show that transcription factor binding matrices (TFBM) evolve to positively constrain phenotypic variability in response to transcription factor binding sequence mutations.