Coping with the quantitative genomics ‘elephant’: the correlation between the gene dispensability and evolution rate

Early studies suggested that proteins with a greater contribution to the fitness of an organism evolve more slowly than less ‘important’ proteins. Recent articles by two research groups highlight the long-standing controversy about the genome-wide relationships between the measures of evolution rate, protein abundance and the fitness effect of gene disruption. These studies highlight the need for truly multidimensional approaches to the issues of quantitative genomics.