Figure 4

An example of the dominance effect following duplication. The inset (top left) gives an example time course for the protein products of the four genes. Regulation of gene 4 in the ancestral network includes two redundant interactions from genes 2 and 3, which cannot be removed in succession without perturbing the dynamics (since genes 2 and 3 have identical dynamics, their contributions cancel out). However, following duplication, these interactions can be lost successively (albeit in order, with the input from gene 3 degenerating first), since any dynamic perturbations will be masked by the intact second copy. Since the first copy now produces the correct dynamics, the degeneration process can be repeated in the second copy. Further degeneration might lead to a final state of complementation between the two copies.