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Adam Eyre-Walker

Publications and source records attributed to Adam Eyre-Walker.

27 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed2003

The problem of counting sites in the estimation of the synonymous and nonsynonymous substitution rates: implications for the correlation between the synonymous substitution rate and codon usage bias.

Most methods for estimating the rate of synonymous and nonsynonymous substitution per site define a site as a mutational opportunity: the proportion of sites that are synonymous is equal to the proportion of mutations that would be synonymous under the model of evolution being considered. Here we demonstrate that this definition of a site can give misleading results and that a physical definition of site should be used in some circumstances. We illustrate our point by reexamining the relationship between codon usage bias and the synonymous substitution rate. It has recently been shown that the rate of synonymous substitution, calculated using the Goldman-Yang method, which encapsulates the mutational-opportunity definition of a site at a high level of sophistication, is either positively correlated or uncorrelated to synonymous codon bias in Drosophila. Using other methods, which account for synonymous codon bias but define a site physically, we show that there is a negative correlation between the synonymous substitution rate and codon bias and that the lack of a negative correlation using the Goldman-Yang method is due to the way in which the number of synonymous sites is counted. We also show that there is a positive correlation between the synonymous substitution rate and third position GC content in mammals, but that the relationship is considerably weaker than that obtained using the Goldman-Yang method. We argue that the Goldman-Yang method is misleading in this context and conclude that methods that rely on a mutational-opportunity definition of a site should be used with caution.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Partitioning the variation in mammalian substitution rates.

We have used analysis of variance to partition the variation in synonymous and amino acid substitution rates between three effects (gene, lineage, and a gene-by-lineage interaction) in mammalian nuclear and mitochondrial genes. We find that gene effects are stronger for amino acid substitution rates than for synonymous substitution rates and that lineage effects are stronger for synonymous substitution rates than for amino acid substitution rates. Gene-by-lineage interactions, equivalent to overdispersion corrected for lineage effects, are found in amino acid substitutions but not in synonymous substitutions. The variance in the ratio of amino acid and synonymous substitution rates is dominated by gene effects, but there is also a significant gene-by-lineage interaction.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2002

Adaptive protein evolution in Drosophila.

For over 30 years a central question in molecular evolution has been whether natural selection plays a substantial role in evolution at the DNA sequence level. Evidence has accumulated over the last decade that adaptive evolution does occur at the protein level, but it has remained unclear how prevalent adaptive evolution is. Here we present a simple method by which the number of adaptive substitutions can be estimated and apply it to data from Drosophila simulans and D. yakuba. We estimate that 45% of all amino-acid substitutions have been fixed by natural selection, and that on average one adaptive substitution occurs every 45 years in these species.

Adaptation, Biological↗
PubMed2002

The compositional evolution of the murid genome.

Murid rodents show much less variation in isochore base composition than do most other mammals, a difference which has been referred to as the murid shift. We have investigated the murid shift by asking (1) whether the murid shift is ongoing and (2) whether there is any evidence of selection or biased gene conversion affecting base composition in the present-day mouse genome. By estimating the ancestral base composition of protein-coding genes in murids we can confirm that the murid shift is ongoing. Tests using nongenic polymorphism data fail to reject the hypothesis that base composition is due to mutation bias alone. However, the patterns of compositional change suggested by the polymorphism and divergence data differ, suggesting the possibility of two murid shifts.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Analysis of the phylogenetic distribution of isochores in vertebrates and a test of the thermal stability hypothesis.

Warm-blooded vertebrates show large-scale variation in G + C content along their chromosomes, a pattern which appears to be largely absent from cold-blooded vertebrates. However, compositional variation in poikilotherms has generally been studied by ultracentrifugation rather than sequence analysis. In this paper, we investigate the compositional properties of coding sequences from a broad range of vertebrate poikilotherms using DNA sequence analysis. We find that on average poikilotherms have lower third-codon position GC contents (GC3) than homeotherms but that some poikilotherms have higher mean GC3 values. We find that most poikilotherms have lower variation in GC3 than homeotherms but that there is a correlation between GC12 and GC3 for some species, indicating that there is systematic variation in base composition across their genomes. We also demonstrate that the GC3 of genes in the zebrafish, Danio rerio, is correlated with that in humans, suggesting that vertebrates share a basic isochore structure. However, we find no correlation between either the mean GC3 or the standard deviation in GC3 and body temperature.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

The evolution of isochores: evidence from SNP frequency distributions.

The large-scale systematic variation in nucleotide composition along mammalian and avian genomes has been a focus of the debate between neutralist and selectionist views of molecular evolution. Here we test whether the compositional variation is due to mutation bias using two new tests, which do not assume compositional equilibrium. In the first test we assume a standard population genetics model, but in the second we make no assumptions about the underlying population genetics. We apply the tests to single-nucleotide polymorphism data from noncoding regions of the human genome. Both models of neutral mutation bias fit the frequency distributions of SNPs segregating in low- and medium-GC-content regions of the genome adequately, although both suggest compositional nonequilibrium. However, neither model fits the frequency distribution of SNPs from the high-GC-content regions. In contrast, a simple population genetics model that incorporates selection or biased gene conversion cannot be rejected. The results suggest that mutation biases are not solely responsible for the compositional biases found in noncoding regions.

Alleles↗
PubMed2002

Changing effective population size and the McDonald-Kreitman test.

Artifactual evidence of adaptive amino acid substitution can be generated within a McDonald-Kreitman test if some amino acid mutations are slightly deleterious and there has been an increase in effective population size. Here I investigate the conditions under which this occurs. I show that fairly small increases in effective population size can generate artifactual evidence of positive selection if there is no selection upon synonymous codon use. This problem is exacerbated by the removal of low-frequency polymorphisms. However, selection on synonymous codon use restricts the conditions under which artifactual evidence of adaptive evolution is produced.

Amino Acid Substitution↗
PubMed2002

Quantifying the slightly deleterious mutation model of molecular evolution.

We have attempted to quantify the frequency and effects of slightly deleterious mutations (SDMs), those that have selective effects close to the reciprocal of the effective population size of a species, by comparing the level of selective constraint in protein-coding genes of related species that have different present-day effective population sizes. In our two comparisons, the species with the smaller effective population size showed lower constraint, implying that SDMs had become fixed. The fixation of SDMs was supported by the observation of a higher fraction of radical to conservative amino acid substitutions in species with smaller effective population sizes. The fraction of strongly deleterious mutations (which rarely become fixed) is >70% in most species. Only approximately 10% or fewer of mutations seem to behave as SDMs, but SDMs could comprise a substantial fraction of mutations in protein-coding genes that have a chance of becoming fixed between species.

Amino Acid Substitution↗