BERNARDI

The formation and maintenance of the isochores from the genomes of warm-blooded vertebrates is due to natural selection

Giorgio Bernardi

Laboratorio di Evoluzione Molecolare, Naples, Italy

Ten years after the discovery of isochores (Macaya et al., 1976), it was proposed (Bernardi and Bernardi, 1986) that their formation and maintenance were due natural selection. This stirred a debate which is still going on. The most recent contribution along this line (which certainly will no be the last) was a correspondence with the peremptory title: "Isochores result from mutation not selection" (Francino and Ochman, 1999). In my presentation I will summarize the arguments, old and new, in favour of natural selection.

[1] Macaya, G., Thiery, J.P., Bernardi, G., (1976) J. Mol. Biol. 108, 237-254.
[2] Bernardi, G., Bernardi, G., (1986) J. Mol. Evol. 24, 1-11
[3] Francino, M.P., Ochman, H., (1999) Nature 400, 30-31