Adaptation at Genome Scale: a gene or a functional centered concept?

HERNÁN DOPAZO

Altenber, Austria

Workshop; Origins of EvoDevo: A tribute to Pere Alberch; 2008

Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research

Adaptation at Genome Scale: a gene or a functional centered concept? Hernán Dopazo Comparative Genomics Unit. Bioinformatics and Genomics Department. Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe. Valencia. Spain Large or complete genome analyses of adaptation are based on concepts and methods developed for single gene analysis. Statistical methods to test for neutrality are equally used today for genes working independently or associated by functional demands. The main outcome of this gene centered view is interesting, few evidences of adaptive divergence seems to be found between major clusters of mammals. Looking through the complete genome of human, chimpanzee, mouse, rat and dog we demonstrate that in protein coding genes selective pressures not necessarily indicating positive selection are functionally associated to a many different classes of biological functions. Moreover, we found that proteins changing at faster rates of dN are physically closer in chromosomes and many of them associated to different metabolic pathways. All these evidences points out that adaptive evolution at genomic level seems to work through a high number of slightly correlated nonsynonymous changes affecting functionally related genes rather than a few major single changes produced by positively selected genes.