Award details

Selection Footprints and Mapping

Reference	BBS/E/R/00001618
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor John Woolliams
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Roslin Institute
Department	The Roslin Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	28,856
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/10/2007
End date	30/09/2011
Duration	48 months

Abstract

The research funded by this grant explores a relatively new approach to gene mapping. The selection (or hitchhiking) mapping approach exploits the fact that genetic diversity will be reduced near a gene under strong selection, due to statistical associations that develop along a chromosome. The recent increase in availability of genetic diversity data, due to technical improvements and reductions in cost of genome-wide sequencing, have made such techniques feasible. So far, this approach has primarily been applied to human data sets, with the goal of understanding the selective processes that have acted on the human genome over the course of evolution. An important issue is that while there has been a large effort applied to data generation and analysis (including the publication of some controversial conclusions regarding human evolution), the power and limitations of this approach have not been seriously addressed by researchers. The importance of our work is that it focuses on genes for which there is strong historical evidence of selection, allowing us to characterize the diversity patterns generated by selection. In most wild species and humans, this would not be possible since it is rare that a gene or genetic region is definitely known to have been under selection. However, in domesticated species, where the selection pressure has been strong and often on well-defined traits, there are more opportunities for implementation of this approach to identify genes related to the domestication process. This research has examined the diversity patterns at neutral markers in the region of three cattle genes with strong evidence of selection as well as for simulated genotypic data, generated under specific selection regimes.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Genes & Developmental Biology (GDB)
Research Topics	Animal Health, Technology and Methods Development
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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