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Uri Liberman

Publications and source records attributed to Uri Liberman.

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Evolutionary theory for modifiers of epistasis using a general symmetric model.

Genetic interactions in fitness are studied by using modifier theory. The effects on fitness of two linked genes are perturbed by alleles at a third linked locus that controls the extent of epistasis in fitness between the first two. This epistasis is determined by a symmetric interaction matrix, and it is shown that a modifier allele that increases epistasis will invade when the linkage between the other two genes is sufficiently tight and these genes are in linkage disequilibrium. With linkage equilibrium among the major loci, increased or decreased epistasis may evolve depending on the allele frequencies at these loci.

Alleles↗

On the evolution of epistasis II: a generalized Wright-Kimura framework.

The evolution of fitness interactions between genes at two major loci is studied where the alleles at a third locus modify the epistatic interaction between the two major loci. The epistasis is defined by a parameter epsilon and a matrix structure that specifies the nature of the interactions. When epsilon=0 the two major loci have additive fitnesses, and when these are symmetric the interaction matrices studied here produce symmetric viabilities of the Wright [1952. The genetics of quantitative variability. In: Reeve, E.C.R., Waddington, C.H. (Eds.), Quantitative Inheritance. Her Majesty's Stationary Office, London]-Kimura [1956. A model of a genetic system which leads to closer linkage by natural selection. Evolution 10, 278-281] form. Two such interaction matrices are studied, for one of which epistasis as measured by |epsilon| always increases, and for the other it increases when the linkage between the major loci is tight enough and there is initial linkage disequilibrium. Increase of epistasis does not necessarily coincide with increase in equilibrium mean fitness.

Alleles↗

On the evolution of epistasis I: diploids under selection.

One interpretation of recent literature on the evolution of phenotypic modularity is that evolution should act to decrease the degree of interaction between genes that contribute to different phenotypes. This issue is addressed directly here using a fitness scheme determined by two genetic loci and a third locus which modifies a measure of statistical interaction between the fitnesses due to the first two. The equilibrium structure of such an epistasis-modifying locus is studied. It is shown that under well-specified conditions a modifying allele that increases epistasis succeeds. In other words, genetic interactions tend to become stronger. It is speculated that this occurs because the mean fitness in such models is locally increasing as a function of the degree of epistasis.

Diploidy↗

On the meaning of non-epistatic selection.

In population genetics, the additive and multiplicative viability models are often used for the quantitative description of models in which the genetic contributions of several different loci are independent; that is, there is no epistasis. Non-epistasis may also be quantitatively defined in terms of measures of interaction used widely in statistics. Setting these measures of epistasis to zero yields alternative definitions of non-epistasis. We show here that these two definitions of non-epistasis are equivalent; that is, in the most general case of a multilocus, multiallele system, the additive and multiplicative viability models are unique solutions of the additive and multiplicative conditions, respectively, for non-epistasis.

Alleles↗