On the natural selection of macromolecular network and biological complexity

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new model explaining how natural selection shaped complex biological networks and organismal complexity, emphasizing gene toxicity and alternating unicellular-multicellular evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a novel concept of gene toxicity and a qualitative model for the evolution of macromolecular networks driven by natural selection.

Findings

Natural selection acts in two opposing directions to integrate new gene functions.

A model for the buildup of cell macromolecular networks is proposed.

Complex life evolved through alternating unicellular and multicellular stages.

Abstract

Modern biological tools have made it possible to unequivocally demonstrate the deep relationship among species in terms of genes and basic molecular mechanisms. In addition, results from genetic, physical and physiological approaches applied to individual model cell systems have led to the mapping of large networks of macromolecular interactions with similar general properties. Although gene, mechanism and network structure similarities among species tend to suggest the existence of important constraints applied to organisms, it is surprising that the elucidation of the precise general mechanisms by which natural selection could have operated appears to have taken a back seat in most, if not all, studies concerning the evolutionary development of cell macromolecular networks. Herein, a possible explanation is presented for how cells could have evolved into the sophisticated and integrated organisms we know today, using natural selection. Based on the new concept of gene toxicity, essentially applied to unicellular organisms with their rapid multiplication rate, it is proposed that natural selection likely exerts its effects in two opposing and complementary directions to integrate a new gene function into the host system; a simple and basic qualitative model for the buildup of cell macromolecular networks is suggested. Finally, as a radical consequence, it is proposed that complex life evolution has proceeded through a long alternation of unicellular and multicellular states.