Detecting Long-Term Balancing Selection Using Allele Frequency Correlation.

ABSTRACT: Balancing selection occurs when multiple alleles are maintained in a population, which can result in their preservation over long evolutionary time periods. A characteristic signature of this long-term balancing selection is an excess number of intermediate frequency polymorphisms near the balanced variant. However, the expected distribution of allele frequencies at these loci has not been extensively detailed, and therefore existing summary statistic methods do not explicitly take it into account. Using simulations, we show that new mutations which arise in close proximity to a site targeted by balancing selection accumulate at frequencies nearly identical to that of the balanced allele. In order to scan the genome for balancing selection, we propose a new summary statistic, β, which dete

SUBMITTER: Siewert KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5850717 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature