Saturday, 29 October 2016

population genetics - Ways to distinguish between purifying selection and selective sweep


When looking a population genomic data, regions of low diversity (lower than expected; such as in a region of high recombination) can indicate either purifying selection of deleterious mutations or a selective sweep of an adaptive mutation. What are some ways one can tell which one occurred?


One way I've heard of is to use an outgroup that did not live through the same events as the main group. If the outgroup also has low diversity, it means nonsynonymous mutations in that region are deleterious regardless of events, and so those homogeneous regions likely underwent purifying selection. If the outgroup has high diversity in those regions, the main group likely went through a selective sweep.


What are other ways to distinguish between the two?




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