Speaker
Kristina Krona
Description
Higher order epistasis is of practical importance for antibiotic and HIV
drug resistance. For instance, a triple mutant may lead to treatment
failure, whereas the corresponding single and double mutant are
harmless. The relative importance of pairwise versus higher order
interactions have been subject to some debate. However recent
empirical studies suggest that the latter type is important. We explored
the relation between higher order epistasis and predictability by
considering fitness graphs, i.e., directed hyper-cube graphs. For each
one of the 193,270,310 four-cube graphs, we counted the peaks and
checked if the graph implied epistasis by using our characterization of
graphs with this property. We found a strong association between
higher order epistasis and the number of peaks based on exact
computation. The relevance for larger system, as well as for
antimicrobial drug resistance, will be discussed.
Primary author
Kristina Krona
