This article is part of the supplement: Otto Warburg International Summer School and Workshop on Networks and Regulation
Review
From biophysics to evolutionary genetics: statistical aspects of gene regulation
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Correspondence: Michael Lässig lassig@thp.uni-koeln.de
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Str., 77, 50937 Köln, Germany
BMC Bioinformatics 2007, 8(Suppl 6):S7 doi:10.1186/1471-2105-8-S6-S7
Published: 27 September 2007Abstract
This is an introductory review on how genes interact to produce biological functions. Transcriptional interactions involve the binding of proteins to regulatory DNA. Specific binding sites can be identified by genomic analysis, and these undergo a stochastic evolution process governed by selection, mutations, and genetic drift. We focus on the links between the biophysical function and the evolution of regulatory elements. In particular, we infer fitness landscapes of binding sites from genomic data, leading to a quantitative evolutionary picture of regulation.