PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Thomas Lenormand
AU  - Noémie Harmand
AU  - Romain Gallet
TI  - Cost of resistance: an unreasonably expensive concept
AID  - 10.1101/276675
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 276675
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/17/276675.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/17/276675.full
AB  - The cost of resistance, or the fitness effect of resistance mutation in absence of the drug, is a very widepsread concept in evolutionary genetics and beyond. It has represented an important addition to the simplistic view that resistance mutations should solely be considered as beneficial mutations. Yet, this concept also entails a series of serious difficulties in its definition, interpretation and current usage. In many cases, it may be simpler, clearer, and more insightful to study, measure and analyze the fitness effects of mutations across environments and to better distinguish those effects from ‘pleiotropic effects’ of those mutations.