The impact of non-neutral synonymous mutations when inferring selection on nonsynonymous mutations.

ABSTRACT: The distribution of fitness effects (DFE) describes the proportions of new mutations that have different effects on fitness. Accurate measurements of the DFE are important because the DFE is a fundamental parameter in evolutionary genetics and has implications for understanding of other phenomena such as complex disease or inbreeding depression. Current computational methods to infer the DFE for nonsynonymous mutations from natural variation first estimate demographic parameters from synonymous variants to control for the effects of demography and background selection. Then, conditional on these parameters, the DFE is inferred for nonsynonymous mutations. This approach relies on the assumption that synonymous variants are neutrally evolving. However, some evidence points toward synonymous

SUBMITTER: Martinez I Zurita A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12693584 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature