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Population genomics reveals the origin and asexual evolution of human infective trypanosomes.
- Source :
-
eLife . 2016, p1-14. 14p. - Publication Year :
- 2016
-
Abstract
- Evolutionary theory predicts that the lack of recombination and chromosomal re-assortment in strictly asexual organisms results in homologous chromosomes irreversibly accumulating mutations and thus evolving independently of each other, a phenomenon termed the Meselson effect. We apply a population genomics approach to examine this effect in an important human pathogen, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. We determine that T.b. gambiense is evolving strictly asexually and is derived from a single progenitor, which emerged within the last 10,000 years. We demonstrate the Meselson effect for the first time at the genome-wide level in any organism and show large regions of loss of heterozygosity, which we hypothesise to be a short-term compensatory mechanism for counteracting deleterious mutations. Our study sheds new light on the genomic and evolutionary consequences of strict asexuality, which this pathogen uses as it exploits a new biological niche, the human population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *MOLECULAR genetics
*GENOMICS
*TRYPANOSOMA
*CHROMOSOMES
*TUMOR suppressor genes
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 2050084X
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- eLife
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 120903802
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11473