Improve it or lose it: evolvability costs of competition for expression

Abstract

Expression level is known to be a strong determinant of a protein's rate of evolution. But the converse can also be true: evolutionary dynamics can affect expression levels of proteins. Having implications in both directions fosters the possibility of a feedback loop, where higher expressed systems are more likely to improve and be expressed even higher, while those that are expressed less are eventually lost to drift. Using a minimal model to study this in the context of a changing environment, we demonstrate that one unexpected consequence of such a feedback loop is that a slow switch to a new environment can allow genotypes to reach higher fitness sooner than a direct exposure to it.