Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 1, 2026

A Practical Guide to Phylogenetics for Nonexperts
Published on: February 5, 2014
Scaling properties of protein family phylogenies
Alejandro Herrada1, Víctor M Eguíluz, Emilio Hernández-García
1Instituto de Física Interdisciplinar y Sistemas Complejos, IFISC (CSIC-UIB), Campus Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. alejandro@ifisc.uib-csic.es
Background:
One of the classical questions in evolutionary biology is how evolutionary processes are coupled at the gene and species level. With this motivation, we compare the topological properties (mainly the depth scaling, as a characterization of balance) of a large set of protein phylogenies with those of a set of species phylogenies.
Results:
The comparative analysis between protein and species phylogenies shows that both sets of phylogenies share a remarkably similar scaling behavior, suggesting the universality of branching rules and of the evolutionary processes that drive biological diversification from gene to species level. In order to explain such generality, we propose a simple model which allows us to estimate the proportion of evolvability/robustness needed to approximate the scaling behavior observed in the phylogenies, highlighting the relevance of the robustness of a biological system (species or protein) in the scaling properties of the phylogenetic trees.
Conclusions:
The invariance of the scaling properties at levels spanning from genes to species suggests that rules that govern the incapability of a biological system to diversify are equally relevant both at the gene and at the species level.
More Related Videos
07:49Creating and Applying a Reference to Facilitate the Discussion and Classification of Proteins in a Diverse Group
Published on: August 16, 2017
07:08Optimization of Synthetic Proteins: Identification of Interpositional Dependencies Indicating Structurally and/or Functionally Linked Residues
Published on: July 14, 2015
Related Concept Videos
Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
In contrast, regions which code...
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
In contrast, regions which code...
Microbial Phylogeny
Conservation of Protein Domains Over Different Proteins
A limited set of protein domains often duplicate and recombine during evolution. These domains can be organized in different combinations to form...
Protein Families