FOUNDATION

OF MOLECULAR
EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 1
TREE OF LIFE
 From the time of Charles Darwin, many biologist dream
to construct evolutionary history of all organism.
 The approach is to use fossil record,incomplete. Used
comparative method (morphology and physiology)-
complex.
 Recent advance in mol bio, evolutionary relationship can
be studied.
CONT
 This aproach has several adv:
 DNA consist of 5 nucleotides, A, T,G,C= can be used to
compare bact, animal, plant and human.

 Evolutionary change of DNA follow regular pattern, possible

to use mathematical model to formulate the change and
compare DNAs from diff related org.

 Genomes contains lots of information than morphological

character.
CONT
 Phylogenetics is less controversial than systematics/
taxonomy because its concerned the evolutionary
relationship of org.

 Phylogenetics play important role in developing

scientific basis of systematics, solve problems of the
latter discipline.
MECHANISM OF EVOLUTION
 The cause of evolution= mutational change of genes
(nucleotide substitution, recombination, gene conversion
etc).
 If mutant gene produces new
morphological/physiological character, it will be
inherited.
 Therefore, if we establish a valid phylogenetic tree for a
group of species, we are able to identify to lineage of
species in which any specific character appeared by
mutation.
CONT
 Determination of the relative importance of mutation is
an important subject in population genetics.
 Here the problem is not the phylogenetic tree of different
species but of different alleles within species.
 Phylogenetic analysis of polymorphic alleles may also
give important about the extent of gene flow between
two populations.
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF GENES
 Genes can be classified into two groups; protein-coding
genes and RNA-coding genes.

 Protein-coding genes- mRNA-a.a of proteins

 RNA-coding genes-tRNA, rRNA,snRNA.

 Genetic information is transfered to mRNA-

transcription.
Basic structure of eukaryotic protein -coding gene in relation to
transcription and translation
CONT
 The genetic code for nuclear genes is universal for both
prokaryotes and eukaryotes with few exceptions.
MUTATIONAL CHANGES OF DNA
SEQUENCES
 All morphological n physiological character is
controlled by gen. information carried by DNA,
any mutational changes are due to DNA changes
(substitution, deletion, insertion and inversion)

 Nucleotide substitution can be divided into two

classes: transitions and transversion.

 Transition=substitution of purine
(A,G)/pyrimidine (T,C) to another
purine/pyrimidine.

 Transversion= other nucleotide substitution (rare)

CONT
 The possible role of unequal crossover in increasing the
number of genes in the genime has been known for many
years.

 However, only after the initiation of molecular study of DNA

has it been realised that it plays an important role in evolution
in increasing/ decreasing DNA content.
CODON USAGE
 If nucleotide substitution occurs at random nucleotide
side, every nucleotide site is expected to have 1 of the 4
nucleotides (A, T, G, C) with equal probability.

 If there is no selection/ mutational bias, codon encoding

a.a are in equal frequency in protein coding region.

 Eg: a.a Valine encoded by GUU, GUC, GUA and GUG.

If we examine the val in genes, frequency of all 4
equally to 25%.
CONT
 In val, the codon are used equally but in arg, CGU and
CGC are used exclusively.

 This codon bias usage is generally observed in both prok

and euk genes.

 Cause of codon usage bias:

 Itis correlated with the relative abundance of the
isoaccepting tRNA in the cell.
 Biased mutation pressure
Thank you