As the diverse and intricate mechanisms of evolution have come to be understood, it has grown increasingly certain that the raw materials upon which they depend are the mutations of genes.

Thus, all mutations that affect the fitness of future generations are agents of evolution. Mutations are essential to evolution. Every genetic feature in every organism was, initially, the result ...

As the global population continues to grow, innovative solutions are needed to ensure food security. With limited land and ...

View Full Profile. Learn about our Editorial Policies. Mutation: it’s the raw material for evolution. That makes knowing the rate at which it occurs crucial to the study of evolutionary biology.

DNA contains genes that carry instructions for the manufacture of a protein. If a mutation occurs in a gene that results in a change to the sequence of DNA bases, then the structure of the protein ...

This paper addresses the important question of quantifying epistasis patterns, which affect the predictability of evolution, by reanalyzing a recently published combinatorial deep mutational scan ...

Variation is the differences in the characteristics of organisms. It can be caused by the genes an individual inherits or the environment it lives in. Extensive genetic variation is contained ...

However, it rarely occurs in other cancer types, thus highlighting the need for large-scale analysis of rare cancers to identify the distinct mutations that underpin their evolution.