Inference of selection based on temporal genetic differentiation in the study of highly polymorphic multigene families

McMullan, Mark and van Oosterhout, Cock ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5653-738X (2012) Inference of selection based on temporal genetic differentiation in the study of highly polymorphic multigene families. PLoS One, 7 (8). ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

The co-evolutionary arms race between host immune genes and parasite virulence genes is known as Red Queen dynamics. Temporal fluctuations in allele frequencies, or the ‘turnover’ of alleles at immune genes, are concordant with predictions of the Red Queen hypothesis. Such observations are often taken as evidence of host-parasite co-evolution. Here, we use computer simulations of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) to study the turnover rate of alleles (temporal genetic differentiation, G’ST). Temporal fluctuations in MHC allele frequencies can be $#order of magnitude larger than changes observed at neutral loci. Although such large fluctuations in the MHC are consistent with Red Queen dynamics, simulations show that other demographic and population genetic processes can account for this observation, these include: (1) overdominant selection, (2) fluctuating population size within a metapopulation, and (3) the number of novel MHC alleles introduced by immigrants when there are multiple duplicated genes. Synergy between these forces combined with migration rate and the effective population size can drive the rapid turnover in MHC alleles. We posit that rapid allelic turnover is an inherent property of highly polymorphic multigene families and that it cannot be taken as evidence of Red Queen dynamics. Furthermore, combining temporal samples in spatial FST outlier analysis may obscure the signal of selection.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© McMullan, van Oosterhout. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Depositing User:	Katherine Humphries
Date Deposited:	21 Feb 2013 15:19
Last Modified:	05 Jul 2023 14:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/41489
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0042119

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