Human demographic history has amplified the effects of background selection across the genome.

ABSTRACT: Natural populations often grow, shrink, and migrate over time. Such demographic processes can affect genome-wide levels of genetic diversity. Additionally, genetic variation in functional regions of the genome can be altered by natural selection, which drives adaptive mutations to higher frequencies or purges deleterious ones. Such selective processes affect not only the sites directly under selection but also nearby neutral variation through genetic linkage via processes referred to as genetic hitchhiking in the context of positive selection and background selection (BGS) in the context of purifying selection. While there is extensive literature examining the consequences of selection at linked sites at demographic equilibrium, less is known about how non-equilibrium demographic processes

SUBMITTER: Torres R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6056204 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature