TY - JOUR AU - Hosseini, Sayed-Rzgar AU - Wagner, Andreas PY - 2016 DA - 2016/10/21 TI - The potential for non-adaptive origins of evolutionary innovations in central carbon metabolism JO - BMC Systems Biology SP - 97 VL - 10 IS - 1 AB - Biological systems are rife with examples of pre-adaptations or exaptations. They range from the molecular scale – lens crystallins, which originated from metabolic enzymes – to the macroscopic scale, such as feathers used in flying, which originally served thermal insulation or waterproofing. An important class of exaptations are novel and useful traits with non-adaptive origins. Whether such origins could be frequent cannot be answered with individual examples, because it is a question about a biological system’s potential for exaptation. SN - 1752-0509 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12918-016-0343-7 DO - 10.1186/s12918-016-0343-7 ID - Hosseini2016 ER -