Chromosome-Scale Selective Sweeps and Genomic Diversity in C. elegans
Andersen, Gerke et al., Nature Genetics
Researchers at Princeton University and elsewhere discuss the effects of chromosome-scale selective sweeps on genomic diversity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Taking a high-throughput selective sequencing approach on a collection of 200 wild C. elegans strains, the team found that the nematode's "genome variation is dominated by a set of commonly shared haplotypes on four of its six chromosomes, each spanning many megabases." Further, the team reports on its population genetic modeling experiments, which showed that "this pattern was generated by chromosome-scale selective sweeps that have reduced variation worldwide; at least one of these sweeps probably occurred in the last few hundred years," it writes.
Genes Are So Passé
November 29, 2007
What is a "gene?" asks Bora Zivkovic. It used to be a unit of heredity, but is it now a stretch of DNA? Or something else? A new, philosophical article in PLoS One by Evelyn Fox Keller and David Harel delves into the definition of a gene and comes up with an alternative to the concept and word of "gene." They propose "genetic functor" or "genitor" that "is intended to capture the essence of inheritance, but which is both richer and more expressive," they write.