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SUMMARY:Understanding the causes of variation in nucleotide diversity acro
 ss the genome - Professor Peter Keightley\, Institute of Evolutionary Biol
 ogy\, University of Edinburgh 
DTSTART:20170302T140000Z
DTEND:20170302T150000Z
UID:TALK69059@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Caroline Newnham
DESCRIPTION:Nucleotide diversity varies between species\, between populati
 ons of the same species and potentially between individuals from the same 
 population. Diversity also varies across the genome within a given species
 \, a phenomenon that can be driven by variation in several factors includi
 ng the mutation rate\, base composition\, the rate of recombination\, and 
 the local frequency of functional sites (such as sites within protein-codi
 ng exons that encode amino acids). In several species\, nucleotide diversi
 ty has been shown to be positively correlated with the rate of recombinati
 on and negatively correlated with the local concentration of functional el
 ements\, including protein-coding exons and conserved noncoding elements. 
 These correlations are likely to be driven by natural selection acting wit
 hin the functional elements reducing diversity at linked sites. Diversity 
 at linked sites might be reduced either because of selection favouring adv
 antageous mutations (leading to selective sweeps) or selection against del
 eterious mutations (reducing diversity by a process known as background se
 lection). However\, the relative importance of advantageous versus deleter
 ious mutations as drivers of the observed correlations with diversity has 
 been hard to quantify. In this seminar\, I will describe recent work to ad
 dress this question by population genetics analysis of whole-genome polymo
 rphism data from wild house mice and related species. The basis of our app
 roach is to infer distributions of fitness effects of mutations occurring 
 within functional elements\, then to determine whether we capture patterns
  of diversity at neutral sites around functional elements\, assuming param
 eters of the inferred distributions in models incorporating the spatial di
 stribution of functional elements in the genome.
LOCATION:Biffen Lecture Theatre\, Department of Genetics\, Downing Site
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