No signal of deleterious mutation accumulation in conserved gene sequences of extant asexual hexapods.

ABSTRACT: Loss of sex and recombination is generally assumed to impede the effectiveness of purifying selection and to result in the accumulation of slightly deleterious mutations. Empirical evidence for this has come from several studies investigating mutational load in a small number of individual genes. However, recent whole transcriptome based studies have yielded inconsistent results, hence questioning the validity of the assumption of mutational meltdown in asexual populations. Here, we study the effectiveness of purifying selection in eight asexual hexapod lineages and their sexual relatives, as present in the 1 K Insect Transcriptome Evolution (1KITE) project, covering eight hexapod groups. We analyse the accumulation of slightly deleterious nonsynonymous and synonymous point mutations in 99

SUBMITTER: Brandt A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6441085 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature