Data from: Robustness to noise in gene expression evolves despite epistatic constraints in a model of gene networks

Despite strong sign epistasis, adaptation rarely proceeds via deleterious intermediate steps, but instead occurs primarily through small beneficial mutations. A simple mathematical model captures the relevant features of the single-gene fitness landscape and explains counterintuitive patterns, such as a correlation between the mean and standard deviation of phenotypes. In more complex networks, mutations in regulatory regions provide evolutionary pathways to increased robustness.

These results chart the constraints and possibilities of adaptation to reduce expression noise and demonstrate the potential of a novel modeling framework for gene networks.

Usage notes

Part A Part A--use "cat" utility to reassemble into a zipped folder containing the complete code and data files. dryad_files_a Part B Part B--use "cat" utility to reassemble into a zipped folder containing the complete code and data files. dryad_files_b Part C Part C--use "cat" utility to reassemble into a zipped folder containing the complete code and data files. dryad_files_c