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| 2. |
- Axelsson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Quantification of Adaptive Evolution of Genes Expressed in Avian Brain and the Population Size Effect on the Efficacy of Selection
- 2009
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 26:5, s. 1073-1079
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Whether protein evolution is mainly due to fixation of beneficial alleles by positive selection or to random genetic drift has remained a contentious issue over the years. Here, we use two genomewide polymorphism data sets collected from chicken populations, together with divergence data from >5,000 chicken-zebra finch gene orthologs expressed in brain, to assess the amount of adaptive evolution in protein-coding genes of birds. First, we show that estimates of the fixation index (FI, the ratio of fixed nonsynonymous-to-synonymous changes over the ratio of the corresponding polymorphisms) are highly dependent on the character of the underlying data sets. Second, by using polymorphism data from high-frequency alleles, to avoid the confounding effect of slightly deleterious mutations segregating at low frequency, we estimate that about 20% of amino acid changes have been brought to fixation through positive selection during avian evolution. This estimate is intermediate to that obtained in humans (lower) and flies as well as bacteria (higher), and is consistent with population genetics theory that stipulates a positive relationship between the efficiency of selection and the effective population size. Further, by comparing the FIs for common and all alleles, we estimate that approximate to 20% of nonsynonymous variation segregating in chicken populations represent slightly deleterious mutations, which is less than in Drosophila. Overall, these results highlight the link between the effective population size and positive as well as negative selection.
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| 3. |
- Axelsson, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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The effect of ancient DNA damage on inferences of demographic histories.
- 2008
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 25:10, s. 2181-7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The field of ancient DNA (aDNA) is casting new light on many evolutionary questions. However, problems associated with the postmortem instability of DNA may complicate the interpretation of aDNA data. For example, in population genetic studies, the inclusion of damaged DNA may inflate estimates of diversity. In this paper, we examine the effect of DNA damage on population genetic estimates of ancestral population size. We simulate data using standard coalescent simulations that include postmortem damage and show that estimates of effective population sizes are inflated around, or right after, the sampling time of the ancestral DNA sequences. This bias leads to estimates of increasing, and then decreasing, population sizes, as observed in several recently published studies. We reanalyze a recently published data set of DNA sequences from the Bison (Bison bison/Bison priscus) and show that the signal for a change in effective population size in this data set vanishes once the effects of putative damage are removed. Our results suggest that population genetic analyses of aDNA sequences, which do not accurately account for damage, should be interpreted with great caution.
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| 4. |
- Brandström, Mikael, et al.
(författare)
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The relationship between microsatellite polymorphism and recombination hot spots in the human genome
- 2008
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 25:12, s. 2579-2587
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although previous studies have failed to detect an association between microsatellite polymorphism and broadscale recombination rates in the human genome, there are several possible reasons why such a relationship could exist. For instance, there might be a direct link if recombination is mutagenic to microsatellite sequences or if polymorphic microsatellites act as recombination signals. Alternatively, recombination could exert an indirect effect by uncoupling of natural selection at linked loci, promoting polymorphism. As recombination is concentrated in narrow hotspot regions in the human genome, we investigated the relationship between microsatellite polymorphism and recombination hot spots. By using data from a common allele frequency database, we found several polymorphism estimates to be similar for hot spots and the genomic average. However, this is likely explained by an ascertainment bias because markers with high polymorphism information content are usually selected for genotyping in human populations and pedigrees. In contrast, by using an unbiased set of shotgun sequence data, we found an excess of microsatellite polymorphism in recombination hot spots of 14%. However, when other genomic variables are taken into account in a generalized model and using wavelet analysis, the effect is no longer detectable and the only firm predictor of microsatellite polymorphism is the incidence of SNPs and indels. One possible neutral explanation to these observations is that there is a common denominator affecting the local rate of mutation in unique as well as in repetitive DNA, for example, base composition.
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| 5. |
- Brindefalk, Björn, et al.
(författare)
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Origin and evolution of the mitochondrial aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases
- 2007
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 24:3, s. 743-756
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many theories favor a fusion of 2 prokaryotic genomes for the origin of the Eukaryotes, but there are disagreements on the origin, timing, and cellular structures of the cells involved. Equally controversial is the source of the nuclear genes for mitochondrial proteins, although the α-proteobacterial contribution to the mitochondrial genome is well established. Phylogenetic inferences show that the nuclearly encoded mitochondrial aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) occupy a position in the tree that is not close to any of the currently sequenced α-proteobacterial genomes, despite cohesive and remarkably well-resolved α-proteobacterial clades in 12 of the 20 trees. Two or more α-proteobacterial clusters were observed in 8 cases, indicative of differential loss of paralogous genes or horizontal gene transfer. Replacement and retargeting events within the nuclear genomes of the Eukaryotes was indicated in 10 trees, 4 of which also show split α-proteobacterial groups. A majority of the mitochondrial aaRSs originate from within the bacterial domain, but none specifically from the α-Proteobacteria. For some aaRS, the endosymbiotic origin may have been erased by ongoing gene replacements on the bacterial as well as the eukaryotic side. For others that accurately resolve the α-proteobacterial divergence patterns, the lack of affiliation with mitochondria is more surprising. We hypothesize that the ancestral eukaryotic gene pool hosted primordial "bacterial-like" genes, to which a limited set of α-proteobacterial genes, mostly coding for components of the respiratory chain complexes, were added and selectively maintained.
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| 6. |
- Burri, Reto, et al.
(författare)
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Evolutionary patterns of MHC class II B in owls and their implications for the understanding of avian MHC evolution
- 2008
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 25:6, s. 1180-1191
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Owing to its special mode of evolution and central role in the adaptive immune system, the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) has become the focus of diverse disciplines such as immunology, evolutionary ecology, and molecular evolution. MHC evolution has been studied extensively in diverse vertebrate lineages over the last few decades, and it has been suggested that birds differ from the established mammalian norm. Mammalian MHC genes evolve independently, and duplication history (i.e., orthology) can usually be traced back within lineages. In birds, this has been observed in only 3 pairs of closely related species. Here we report strong evidence for the persistence of orthology of MHC genes throughout an entire avian order. Phylogenetic reconstructions of MHC class II B genes in 14 species of owls trace back orthology over tens of thousands of years in exon 3. Moreover, exon 2 sequences from several species show closer relationships than sequences within species, resembling transspecies evolution typically observed in mammals. Thus, although previous studies suggested that long-term evolutionary dynamics of the avian MHC was characterized by high rates of concerted evolution, resulting in rapid masking of orthology, our results question the generality of this conclusion. The owl MHC thus opens new perspectives for a more comprehensive understanding of avian MHC evolution.
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| 7. |
- Cruz, F., et al.
(författare)
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The legacy of domestication : Accumulation of deleterious mutations in the dog genome
- 2008
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 25:11, s. 2331-2336
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dogs exhibit more phenotypic variation than any other mammal and are affected by a wide variety of genetic diseases. However, the origin and genetic basis of this variation is still poorly understood. We examined the effect of domestication on the dog genome by comparison with its wild ancestor, the gray wolf. We compared variation in dog and wolf genes using whole-genome single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. The d(N)/d(S) ratio (omega) was around 50% greater for SNPs found in dogs than in wolves, indicating that a higher proportion of nonsynonymous alleles segregate in dogs compared with nonfunctional genetic variation. We suggest that the majority of these alleles are slightly deleterious and that two main factors may have contributed to their increase. The first is a relaxation of selective constraint due to a population bottleneck and altered breeding patterns accompanying domestication. The second is a reduction of effective population size at loci linked to those under positive selection due to Hill-Robertson interference. An increase in slightly deleterious genetic variation could contribute to the prevalence of disease in modern dog breeds.
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| 8. |
- Dawson, Deborah A., et al.
(författare)
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Gene order and recombination rate in homologous chromosome regions of the chicken and a passerine bird
- 2007
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 24:7, s. 1537-1552
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genome structure has been found to be highly conserved between distantly related birds and recent data for a limited part of the genome suggest that this is true also for the gene order (synteny) within chromosomes. Here, we confirm that synteny is maintained for large chromosomal regions in chicken and a passerine bird, the great reed warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus, with few rearrangements, but in contrast show that the recombination-based linkage map distances differ substantially between these species. We assigned a chromosomal location based on sequence similarity to the chicken genome sequence to a set of inicrosatellite loci mapped in a pedigree of great reed warblers. We detected homologous loci on 14 different chromosomes corresponding to chicken chromosomes Gga1-5, 7-9, 13, 19, 20, 24, 25, and Z. It is known that 2 passerine macrochromosomes correspond to the chicken chromosome Gga1. Homology of 2 different great reed warbler linkage groups (LG13 and LG5) to Gga1 allowed us to locate the split to a position between 20.8 and 84.8 Mb on Gga1. Data from the 5 chromosomal regions (on Gga1, 2, 3, 5, and Z) with 3 or more homologous loci showed that synteny was conserved with the exception of 2 large previously unreported inversions on Gga1/LG5 and Gga2/LG3, respectively. Recombination data from the 9 chromosomal regions in which we identified 2 or more homologous loci (accounting for the inversions) showed that the linkage map distances in great reed warblers were only 6.3% and 13.3% of those in chickens for males and females, respectively. This is likely to reflect the true interspecific difference in recombination rate because our markers were not located in potentially low-recombining regions: several linkage groups covered a substantial part of their corresponding chicken chromosomes and were not restricted to centromeres. We conclude that recombination rates may differ strongly between bird species with highly conserved genome structure and synteny and that the chicken linkage map may not be suitable, in terms of genetic distances, as a model for all bird species.
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| 9. |
- Dutilh, Bas E., et al.
(författare)
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Signature genes as a phylogenomic tool
- 2008
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford journals. - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 25:8, s. 1659-1667
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gene content has been shown to contain a strong phylogenetic signal, yet its usage for phylogenetic questions is hampered by horizontal gene transfer and parallel gene loss and until now required completely sequenced genomes. Here, we introduce an approach that allows the phylogenetic signal in gene content to be applied to any set of sequences, using signature genes for phylogenetic classification. The hundreds of publicly available genomes allow us to identify signature genes at various taxonomic depths, and we show how the presence of signature genes in an unspecified sample can be used to characterize its taxonomic composition. We identify 8,362 signature genes specific for 112 prokaryotic taxa. We show that these signature genes can be used to address phylogenetic questions on the basis of gene content in cases where classic gene content or sequence analyses provide an ambiguous answer, such as for Nanoarchaeum equitans, and even in cases where complete genomes are not available, such as for metagenomics data. Cross-validation experiments leaving out up to 30% of the species show that approximately 92% of the signature genes correctly place the species in a related clade. Analyses of metagenomics data sets with the signature gene approach are in good agreement with the previously reported species distributions based on phylogenetic analysis of marker genes. Summarizing, signature genes can complement traditional sequence-based methods in addressing taxonomic questions.
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| 10. |
- Forslund, Kristoffer, et al.
(författare)
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Domain tree-based analysis of protein architecture evolution
- 2008
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Ingår i: Molecular biology and evolution. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0737-4038 .- 1537-1719. ; 25:2, s. 254-264
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the dynamics behind domain architecture evolution is of great importance to unravel the functions of proteins. Complex architectures have been created throughout evolution by rearrangement and duplication events. An interesting question is how many times a particular architecture has been created, a form of convergent evolution or domain architecture reinvention. Previous studies have approached this issue by comparing architectures found in different species. We wanted to achieve a finer-grained analysis by reconstructing protein architectures on complete domain trees. The prevalence of domain architecture reinvention in 96 genomes was investigated with a novel domain tree-based method that uses maximum parsimony for inferring ancestral protein architectures. Domain architectures were taken from Pfam. To ensure robustness, we applied the method to bootstrap trees and only considered results with strong statistical support. We detected multiple origins for 12.4% of the scored architectures. In a much smaller data set, the subset of completely domain-assigned proteins, the figure was 5.6%. These results indicate that domain architecture reinvention is a much more common phenomenon than previously thought. We also determined which domains are most frequent in multiply created architectures and assessed whether specific functions could be attributed to them. However, no strong functional bias was found in architectures with multiple origins.
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