Analysis of a Population Genetics Model with Mutation, Selection, and Pleiotropy

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a population genetics model with mutation, selection, and pleiotropy, using recursion and quantum mechanics analogies to understand allele distribution over time and the emergence of a condensed mode.

Contribution

It introduces a recursive approach to compute allele distributions at finite times and maps the model to quantum problems to analyze long-term behavior.

Findings

Condensed mode occurs if no bound state exists in the quantum analogy.

Discrete- and continuous-time models show similar qualitative behavior.

Quantum analogy helps understand the emergence of allele concentration.

Abstract

We investigate the behavior of a population genetics model introduced by Waxman and Peck incorporating mutation, selection, and pleiotropy. The population is infinite and continuous variation of genotype is allowed. Nonetheless, Waxman and Peck showed that if the degree of pleiotropy is large enough,in this model a nonzero fraction of the population can have identical alleles. This `condensed mode' behavior appears in the limit of infinite times. This paper explores the time-dependence of the distribution of alleles in this model. First, the model is analyzed using a recursion technique which enables the distribution of alleles to be calculated at finite times as well as in Waxman and Peck's infinite-time limit. Second, both Waxman and Peck's original model and a related model in which mutations occur continuously are mapped onto problems in quantum mechanics. In both cases, the long-time analysis for the biological model is equivalent to finding the nature of the eigenstates of the quantum problem. The condensed mode appears if and only if there is no bound state in the quantum problem. We compare the behavior of the discrete- and continuous-time versions of the model. The results for the two cases are qualitatively similar, though there are some quantitative differences. We also discuss our attempts to correlate the statistics of DNA sequence variations with the degree of pleiotropy of various genes.