Pervasive hitchhiking at coding and regulatory sites in humans.

ABSTRACT: Much effort and interest have focused on assessing the importance of natural selection, particularly positive natural selection, in shaping the human genome. Although scans for positive selection have identified candidate loci that may be associated with positive selection in humans, such scans do not indicate whether adaptation is frequent in general in humans. Studies based on the reasoning of the MacDonald-Kreitman test, which, in principle, can be used to evaluate the extent of positive selection, suggested that adaptation is detectable in the human genome but that it is less common than in Drosophila or Escherichia coli. Both positive and purifying natural selection at functional sites should affect levels and patterns of polymorphism at linked nonfunctional sites. Here, we search for

SUBMITTER: Cai JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2613029 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature