Berlin 2024 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 1: Systems and Network Biophysics

BP 1.2: Talk

Monday, March 18, 2024, 10:00–10:15, H 0112

Non-determinism and Boltzmann ensembles in genotype-phenotype maps — •Nora S. Martin¹, Paula García-Galindo², and Sebastian E. Ahnert^2,3 — ¹CRG (Barcelona Collaboratorium for Modelling and Predictive Biology), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Dr. Aiguader 88, Barcelona 08003, Spain — ²Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Philippa Fawcett Drive, Cambridge CB3 0AS, UK — ³The Alan Turing Institute, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK

Over the last decades, analyses of genotype-phenotype (GP) maps have greatly contributed to our quantitative understanding of variation and its role in evolutionary processes. While the GP map of RNA secondary structure is maybe the best-studied example, many concepts have subsequently been applied to a range of further biological systems. However, most analyses neglect one key aspect of RNA folding that is also relevant in other systems: a genotype does not simply fold into a single structure (i.e. phenotype). Instead, its folding is more accurately described as a Boltzmann ensemble, i.e., a distribution of structures. This defines a different type of GP map, referred to as a ``non-deterministic" map. In this contribution, I will describe definitions required for characterising these ``non-deterministic" maps, and what patterns they reveal.

Keywords: evolution; RNA secondary structure; genotype-phenotype map; fitness landscape