INVESTIGADORES
DOPAZO Hernan Javier
artículos
Título:
Natural selection on functional modules, a genome-wide analysis
Autor/es:
SERRA, F.; ARBIZA L.; DOPAZO, J.; DOPAZO, H.
Revista:
PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
Editorial:
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
Referencias:
Lugar: e1001093. San Francisco, USA; Año: 2011 vol. 7 p. 1 - 9
ISSN:
1553-734X
Resumen:
Classically, the functional consequences of natural selection over genomes have been analyzed as the compound effects of individual genes. The current paradigm for large-scale analysis of adaptation is based on the observed significant deviations of rates of individual genes from neutral evolutionary expectation. Such approach, which assumed independence among genes, has not been able to identify biological functions significantly enriched in positively selected genes of individual species. Alternatively, pooling related species has enhanced the search for signatures of selection. However, grouping signatures does not allow testing for adaptive differences between species. Here we introduce the Gene-Set Selection Analysis (GSSA), a new genome-wide approach to test for evidences of natural selection on functional modules. GSSA is able to detect lineage specific evolutionary rate changes in a notable number of functional modules. For example, in nine mammal and Drosophilae genomes GSSA identifies hundreds of functional modules with significant associations to high and low rates of evolution. Many of the detected functional modules with high evolutionary rates have been previously identified as biological functions under positive selection. Notably, GSSA identifies conserved functional modules with many positively selected genes, which questions that they are exclusively selected for fitting genomes to environmental changes. Our results agree with previous studies suggesting that adaptation requires positive selection, but not every mutation under positive selection contributes to the adaptive dynamical process of the evolution of species.