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

Michael Lässig

Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Str., 77, 50937 Köln, Germany

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BMC Bioinformatics 2007, 8(Suppl 6):S7doi:10.1186/1471-2105-8-S6-S7

Published:	27 September 2007

Abstract

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.