Comparing Technological Development and Biological Evolution from a Network Perspective

Koon-Kiu Yan; Daifeng Wang; Kun Xiong; Mark Gerstein

doi:10.1016/j.cels.2020.02.004

Comparing Technological Development and Biological Evolution from a Network Perspective

Cell Syst. 2020 Mar 25;10(3):219-222. doi: 10.1016/j.cels.2020.02.004.

Authors

Koon-Kiu Yan¹, Daifeng Wang², Kun Xiong³, Mark Gerstein⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Computational Biology, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN 38105, USA.
² Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI 53726, USA; Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI 53705, USA.
³ Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
⁴ Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Department of Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Department of Statistics and Data Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. Electronic address: mark@gersteinlab.org.

PMID: 32213348
DOI: 10.1016/j.cels.2020.02.004

Abstract

We compare the "patterns of mutation" in biological and technological networks. Negative selection at central nodes in biological networks has been widely reported; however, we show technological networks have an opposite trend. This suggests a potential contrast: biological evolution involves random tinkering, whereas man-made systems change according to rational planning.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Biological Evolution
Humans
Models, Biological
Protein Interaction Maps
Technology / trends*