On the Evolutionary Fate of Mutant Allele at Duplicate Loci: a Theoretical and Simulation Study

TL;DR

This study uses population genetics models and simulations to explore how selection, linkage, and recombination influence the fixation and evolutionary fate of mutant alleles at duplicate gene loci.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical and simulation-based analysis of mutant allele fixation dynamics at duplicate loci under different genetic models, highlighting the role of selection and linkage.

Findings

Selection influences the fixation of mutant alleles at duplicate loci.

Tight linkage helps preserve mutant alleles at duplicate loci.

Recombination can be affected by selection, impacting gene duplication evolution.

Abstract

Gene duplications are one of major primary driving forces for evolutionary novelty. We took population genetics models of genes duplicate to study how evolutionary forces acting during the fixation of mutant allele at duplicate loci. We study the fixation time of mutant allele at duplicate loci under double null recessive model (DNR) and haploinsufficient model (HI). And we also investigate how selection coefficients with other evolutionary force influence the fixation frequency of mutant allele at duplicate loci. Our results suggest that the selection plays a role in the evolutionary fate of duplicate genes, and tight linkage would help the mutant allele preserved at duplicate loci. Our theoretical simulation agree with the genomics data analysis result well, that selection, rather than drift, plays a important role in the establishment of duplicate loci, and recombination have a great opportunity to be acted upon selection.