Selection Operating on Protein‐coding Genes in the Human Genome

Diogo Meyer, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil
Eugene E Harris, Profesor Vistante, Universidade de São Paulo, New York, Brasil

Published online: March 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020791

The dominant selective force acting on protein-coding regions throughout the human genome is purifying selection, which removes deleterious mutations. The fraction of substitutions that were positively selected, and can therefore be considered to be adaptive, can be estimated using methods based on comparisons of the relative amounts of change at two classes of sites – sites which if changed produce amino acid changes and sites which if changed do not lead to amino acid changes. Current estimates find very low estimates of adaptive evolution in protein-coding regions during human evolution.

Keywords: purifying selection; adaptive evolution; human evolution; negative selection; positive selection

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Related Sub-Topics:

Adaptive Evolution | Evolutionary Processes | Protein Evolution | Selection and Variation | Population Structure and Genetics
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Article Title: Selection Operating on Protein‐coding Genes in the Human Genome
 
How to Cite close
Meyer, Diogo, and Harris, Eugene E(Mar 2008) Selection Operating on Protein‐coding Genes in the Human Genome. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020791]