Surprising fitness consequences of GC-biased gene conversion. II. Heterosis.

Surprising fitness consequences of GC - biased gene conversion

Heterosis is a widespread phenomenon corresponding to the increase in fitness following crosses between individuals from different populations or lines relative to their parents. Its genetic basis has been a topic of controversy since the early 20 th century. The masking of recessive deleterious mutations in hybrids likely explains a substantial part of heterosis. The dynamics and consequences ...

Surprising fitness consequences of GC-biased gene conversion: I. Mutation load and inbreeding depression.

GC-biased gene conversion (gBGC) is a recombination-associated process mimicking selection in favor of G and C alleles. It is increasingly recognized as a widespread force in shaping the genomic nucleotide landscape. In recombination hotspots, gBGC can lead to bursts of fixation of GC nucleotides and to accelerated nucleotide substitution rates. It was recently shown that these episodes of stro...

fitness consequences of GC biased gene conversion . I . Mutation load

Biased gene conversion and the evolution of mammalian genomic landscapes.

Recombination is typically thought of as a symmetrical process resulting in large-scale reciprocal genetic exchanges between homologous chromosomes. Recombination events, however, are also accompanied by short-scale, unidirectional exchanges known as gene conversion in the neighborhood of the initiating double-strand break. A large body of evidence suggests that gene conversion is GC-biased in ...

Selection and biased gene conversion in a multigene family: consequences of interallelic bias and threshold selection.

In a previous paper, I investigated the interactions in a gene family of additive selection and biased gene conversion in a finite population when conversion events are rare. Here I extend my "weak-conversion limit" model by allowing biased interallelic conversion (conversion between alleles at the same locus) of arbitrary frequency and various threshold selection schemes for rare interlocus co...