Writing A Book. Need Help To Understand How A Random Gene Mutation Can Logically Spread.

[dak2552]

So basically a random mutation develops in Syria that gives a high resistance/Immunity to Neurotoxins (I.E. Sarin gas, nerve gas). What i would like to know is the specifics on how(if it is actually possible in the real world) for this gene to spread and be guaranteed to pass on to offspring, but also require both parents to have at least one copy of the gene for it to be active.

 

Optionally, if such a gene is possible: what is the rough growth of this gene in a population from a single carrier after 14 generations, or the formula to calculate it's growth?

Edited November 28, 2017 by dak2552

[Buffy]

What you're hinting at here is Lamarckian Inheritance: the notion that an individual organism can acquire a trait during it's lifetime and then pass it on to it's offspring. It's generally considered a dead theory, although slightly related effects are at the core of Epigenetics.

 

The foundation of modern genetics is built around the notion that changes in DNA occur over time that are not immediately expressed (that is they are often in recessive genes or even more likely in what's colloquially called "junk DNA" which are sequences that appear to be ignored). This is the operation behind Stephen Jay Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium theory that posits that such genes are expressed at evolutionary stress points when environments change significantly.

 

To get back to your example then, if a "high resistance/Immunity to Neurotoxins" was expressed, by the time it was expressed, the genetic material that allowed it would actually already be widespread in the population, and due to those with the expressed version of the sequence being more likely to survive, subsequent generations would have higher percentages of that useful gene in the population. But that would happen quickly because the sequence would already be in a significant portion of the population, the "expression" simply being a small genetic change to "turn on" the existing code.

 

With the advent of gene therapy, it's possible that the expansion in populations that were not in the stressed group could be spread more rapidly, but that's not an evolutionary process.

 

 

It is not enough to discover and prove a useful truth previously unknown, but that it is necessary also to be able to propagate it and get it recognized, :phones:

Buffy

[exchemist]

So basically a random mutation develops in Syria that gives a high resistance/Immunity to Neurotoxins (I.E. Sarin gas, nerve gas). What i would like to know is the specifics on how(if it is actually possible in the real world) for this gene to spread and be guaranteed to pass on to offspring, but also require both parents to have at least one copy of the gene for it to be active.

 

Optionally, if such a gene is possible: what is the rough growth of this gene in a population from a single carrier after 14 generations, or the formula to calculate it's growth?

Why do you impose the condition that both parents need a copy before it is active? Cannot traits be inherited from only one parent and still be expressed?