Replication rate distributions, wild type superiority

Effective Superiority of Wild Type for Various Replication Rate Distributions ... 

One possible option is to adopt a statistical description of the kinetic parameters and to ask how likely it is for the quasi-species to be localized about the wild type. This undertaking requires an analysis beyond the second order in perturbation theory since a distant mutant with a selective value very close to that of the wild type may jeopardize the stability of the latter in the population. We were however encouraged by the progress that had been made with a problem of similar difficulty in the very different area of electron or spin localization in disordered solids. Indeed, it turns out that an expression of the form of Eqn. (III.5) may be obtained, with an explicit expression for the superiority parameter Oq, dependent on the distribution of replication rates but not on any average involving population variables. 

In comparison with Eqn. (III.4) the result of the statistical analysis is to provide an expression for the effective superiority parameter er ff of the wild type in terms of the distribution of replication rates of its mutants. 

The evaluations of the error threshold and effective superiority discussed so far [Eqn. (III.IO)] assume specific knowledge of the wild-type net rate of exact replication It is clear, however, that the wild type is distinguished from the other mutants only insofar as it has the maximum selective value, and so it is sensible to regard this value as the random extreme of n trials from the probability distribution f W) [29]. We may then speak of the general... 

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