Metagenomic signatures of balancing selection in the human gut.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial lineages that populate the human gut microbiota contend with spatial and temporal fluctuations in numerous environmental variables, including bouts of extreme selective agents such as antibiotics. Oscillations in the adaptive landscape can impose balancing selection on populations, leaving characteristic signatures in the sequence variation of functionally significant genomic loci. Despite their potential importance for gut bacterial adaptation, the metagenomic targets of balancing selection have not been identified. Here, I present population genetic evidence that balancing selection maintains allelic diversity in multidrug efflux pumps of multiple predominant gut bacterial species. Metagenome-wide scans of 566,958 genes from 287 bacterial species represented by 118,617 metageno

SUBMITTER: Moeller AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10061541 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature