Abstract
A fundamental issue in molecular evolution is how to identify the evolutionary forces that determine the fate of duplicated genes. The dosage balance hypothesis has been invoked to explain gene duplication patterns at the genomic level under the premise that a dosage imbalance among protein-complex subunits or interacting partners is often deleterious. Here we examine this hypothesis by investigating the molecular basis of dosage sensitivity. We focus on the extent of protein wrapping, which indicates how strongly the structural integrity of a protein relies on its interactive context. From this perspective, we predict that the duplicates of a highly under-wrapped protein or protein subunit should (1) be more sensitive to dosage imbalance and be less likely to be retained and (2) be more likely to survive from a whole-genome duplication (WGD) than from a non-WGD because a WGD causes little or no dosage imbalance. Our under-wrapping analysis of more than 12,000 protein structures strongly supports these predictions and further reveals that the effect of dosage sensitivity on gene duplicability decreases with increasing organismal complexity.