A Parallel Adaptive GA for Linkage Disequilibrium in Genomics.

In this paper, we treat the linkage disequilibrium, used to discover haplotypes, candidate to explain multi-factorial diseases such as diabetes or obesity, as an optimization problem where a given objective function has to be optimized. In order to determine what kind of algorithm will be able to solve this problem, we first study the specificities and the structure of the problem. Results of this study show that exact algorithms are not adapted to this specific problem and lead us to the development of a parallel dedicated adaptive multipopulation genetic algorithm that is able to find several haplotypes of different sizes. After describing the biological problem, we present the dedicated genetic algorithm, its specificities, such as the use of several populations and its advanced mechanisms such as the adaptive choice of operators, random immigrants, and its parallel implementation. We give results on a real dataset

A Parallel Adaptive GA for Linkage Disequilibrium in Genomics.

In this paper, we treat the linkage disequilibrium, used to discover haplotypes, candidate to explain multi-factorial diseases such as diabetes or obesity, as an optimization problem where a given objective function has to be optimized. In order to determine what kind of algorithm will be able to solve this problem, we first study the specificities and the structure of the problem. Results of this study show that exact algorithms are not adapted to this specific problem and lead us to the development of a parallel dedicated adaptive multipopulation genetic algorithm that is able to find several haplotypes of different sizes. After describing the biological problem, we present the dedicated genetic algorithm, its specificities, such as the use of several populations and its advanced mechanisms such as the adaptive choice of operators, random immigrants, and its parallel implementation. We give results on a real dataset

Population genomics of domestic and wild yeasts

The natural genetics of an organism is determined by the distribution of sequences of its genome. Here we present one- to four-fold, with some deeper, coverage of the genome sequences of over seventy isolates of the domesticated baker's yeast, _Saccharomyces cerevisiae_, and its closest relative, the wild _S. paradoxus_, which has never been associated with human activity. These were collected from numerous geographic locations and sources (including wild, clinical, baking, wine, laboratory and food spoilage). These sequences provide an unprecedented view of the population structure, natural (and artificial) selection and genome evolution in these species. Variation in gene content, SNPs, indels, copy numbers and transposable elements provide insights into the evolution of different lineages. Phenotypic variation broadly correlates with global genome-wide phylogenetic relationships however there is no correlation with source. _S. paradoxus_ populations are well delineated along geographic boundaries while the variation among worldwide _S. cerevisiae_ isolates show less differentiation and is comparable to a single _S. paradoxus_ population. Rather than one or two domestication events leading to the extant baker's yeasts, the population structure of _S. cerevisiae_ shows a few well defined geographically isolated lineages and many different mosaics of these lineages, supporting the notion that human influence provided the opportunity for outbreeding and production of new combinations of pre-existing variation

High genetic diversity at the extreme range edge: nucleotide variation at nuclear loci in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) in Scotland

Nucleotide polymorphism at 12 nuclear loci was studied in Scots pine populations across an environmental gradient in Scotland, to evaluate the impacts of demographic history and selection on genetic diversity. At eight loci, diversity patterns were compared between Scottish and continental European populations. At these loci, a similar level of diversity (θsil=~0.01) was found in Scottish vs mainland European populations, contrary to expectations for recent colonization, however, less rapid decay of linkage disequilibrium was observed in the former (ρ=0.0086±0.0009, ρ=0.0245±0.0022, respectively). Scottish populations also showed a deficit of rare nucleotide variants (multi-locus Tajima's D=0.316 vs D=−0.379) and differed significantly from mainland populations in allelic frequency and/or haplotype structure at several loci. Within Scotland, western populations showed slightly reduced nucleotide diversity (πtot=0.0068) compared with those from the south and east (0.0079 and 0.0083, respectively) and about three times higher recombination to diversity ratio (ρ/θ=0.71 vs 0.15 and 0.18, respectively). By comparison with results from coalescent simulations, the observed allelic frequency spectrum in the western populations was compatible with a relatively recent bottleneck (0.00175 × 4Ne generations) that reduced the population to about 2% of the present size. However, heterogeneity in the allelic frequency distribution among geographical regions in Scotland suggests that subsequent admixture of populations with different demographic histories may also have played a role

Natural selection in a population of Drosophila melanogaster explained by changes in gene expression caused by sequence variation in core promoter regions

Estimated regions of linkage disequilibrium and associations between SNPs and expression level in regions flanking CPRs for which sequence variation could explain gene expression variation and was subject to purifying selection or selective sweep. Flanking regions (±5000 bp) of CPRs for CG15743 (A), CG9044 (B), brat (C), Cyp4d1 (D), CG14253 (E), Nmda1 (F), CG6950 (G), CG10463 (H), and CG33506 (I) are shown. Gray shades indicate haplotype blocks within which linkage disequilibrium could be found. Orange bars indicate coding region. Green bar indicates CPR. Each dot indicates a false discovery rate value (FDR) using the Wald test for the association between expression levels and SNPs. Horizontal line indicates FDR threshold (α = 0.01). (PDF 626 kb

Evolutionary processes from the perspective of flowering time diversity.

Although it is well appreciated that genetic studies of flowering time regulation have led to fundamental advances in the fields of molecular and developmental biology, the ways in which genetic studies of flowering time diversity have enriched the field of evolutionary biology have received less attention despite often being equally profound. Because flowering time is a complex, environmentally responsive trait that has critical impacts on plant fitness, crop yield, and reproductive isolation, research into the genetic architecture and molecular basis of its evolution continues to yield novel insights into our understanding of domestication, adaptation, and speciation. For instance, recent studies of flowering time variation have reconstructed how, when, and where polygenic evolution of phenotypic plasticity proceeded from standing variation and de novo mutations; shown how antagonistic pleiotropy and temporally varying selection maintain polymorphisms in natural populations; and provided important case studies of how assortative mating can evolve and facilitate speciation with gene flow. In addition, functional studies have built detailed regulatory networks for this trait in diverse taxa, leading to new knowledge about how and why developmental pathways are rewired and elaborated through evolutionary time