Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Detection of recent natural selection is a challenging problem in population genetics. Here we introduce the singleton density score (SDS), a method to infer very recent changes in allele frequencies from contemporary genome sequences. Applied to data from the UK10K Project, SDS reflects allele frequency changes in the ancestors of modern Britons during the past ~2000 to 3000 years. We see strong signals of selection at lactase and the major histocompatibility complex, and in favor of blond hair and blue eyes. For polygenic adaptation, we find that recent selection for increased height has driven allele frequency shifts across most of the genome. Moreover, we identify shifts associated with other complex traits, suggesting that polygenic adaptation has played a pervasive role in shaping genotypic and phenotypic variation in modern humans.
Source: Science
Institutions: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, The University of Queensland, Université de Lille, Institut Pasteur de Lille, European Genomic Institute for Diabetes, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Analysis and interpretation of noncoding regulatory variation, Computational methods for modeling lineage-specific gene regulation, COMPUTATIONAL METHODS FOR PROTEOMIC ANALYSIS, Statistical analysis of gene expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL), Integration of functional data and GWAS to elucidate genetic basis of diseases, Biomedical Informatics Training Program at Stanford, Institutional Training Grant in Genome Science
OpenAlex ID: W2531014594