Category Archives: mutation

Sex chromosome evolution … in haploids, that is

Posted on 16 Jan, 2015 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

In diploid organisms, the rates of mutation and recombination played a pivotal role in the evolution of sex-determining regions and, thus, sex chromosomes.  We know quite a bit theoretically and empirically in XY systems in mammals and ZW systems in … Continue reading →

Posted in evolution, mutation | Leave a comment

The Evolution of Recombination

Posted on 4 Dec, 2014 by Arun Sethuraman

In a recent publication, Lesecque et al (2014). provide key evidence that fills in some of the blanks to an age old question – how do recombination hotspots evolve? Their analyses of major PRDM9 (a polymorphic zinc finger protein with … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, mutation, population genetics, theory | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Compensatory evolution: a possible mechanism of population divergence

Posted on 1 Dec, 2014 by Melissa DeBiasse

After spending my graduate career using genetic data to reconstruct historical demographic events, one of the things that excite me the most about my postdoc work is the opportunity to use experimental methods to make evolution happen (insert mad scientist laugh … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, mutation, yeast | 3 Comments

Caught sweeping 'cross the sea

Posted on 28 Nov, 2014 by Stacy Krueger-Hadfield

  The salmon louse Lepeophtheirus salmonis is an ectoparasite linked to declines in wild salmonid populations as well as causing huge economic losses in salmon farms. Previous studies, using a variety of molecular markers, yielded conflicting results ranging from strong … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, genomics, mutation, next generation sequencing | Leave a comment

The Ust'-Ishim Genome

Posted on 6 Nov, 2014 by Arun Sethuraman

This year has been monumental in pulling together several interesting pieces in the human evolution out of Africa puzzle (Lazaridis et al., Ruiz-Linares et al., Skoglund et al., Huerta-Sanchez et al., Jeong et al., Pickrell et al., Raghavan et al., … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, mutation, Paleogenomics, population genetics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

WTF (What's The Function?)

Posted on 4 Nov, 2014 by Noah Snyder-Mackler

Jay Shendure’s editorial, “Life after genetics”, points out that we, as geneticists, should shift our focus from variant-finding (e.g., GWAS) to understanding the functional implications of disease-associated variants: “We are in a period of rich discovery in human genetics and genomics. The … Continue reading →

Posted in genomics, medicine, mutation, next generation sequencing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Spontaneous mutations—friend or foe?

Posted on 16 Jun, 2014 by Jeremy Yoder

The following is a cross-posting from the Stanford CEHG Blog by Ryo (Ryosuke) Kit, a graduate student in Hunter Fraser’s lab at Stanford University. Evolution has conflicting opinions about spontaneous mutations. Spontaneous mutations produce the genetic variation that drives evolution … Continue reading →

Posted in mutation, next generation sequencing, population genetics | Tagged | Leave a comment