The Contribution of Purifying Selection, Linkage, and Mutation Bias to the Negative Correlation between Gene Expression and Polymorphism Density in Yeast Populations.

ABSTRACT: The negative correlation between the rate of protein evolution and expression level of a gene has been recognized as a universal law of the evolutionary biology (Koonin 2011). In our study, we apply a population-based approach to systematically investigate the relative importance of unequal mutation rate, linkage, and selection in the origin of the expression-polymorphism anticorrelation. We analyzed the DNA sequence of protein coding genes of 24 Saccharomyces cerevisiae and 58 Schizosaccharomyces pombe strains. We found that highly expressed genes had a substantially decreased number of polymorphic sites when compared with genes transcribed less extensively. This expression-dependent reduction was especially strong in the nonsynonymous sites, although it was also present in the synonymous

SUBMITTER: Marek A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6250307 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature