MBE Advance Access originally published online on June 5, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2006 23(8):1457-1459; doi:10.1093/molbev/msl021
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Estimating Selection Pressures from Limited Comparative Data



* Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania;
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University;
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Department of Physics, Harvard University; and
Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
E-mail: jplotkin{at}sas.upenn.edu.
We recently introduced a novel method for estimating selection pressures on proteins, termed "volatility," which requires only a single genome sequence. Some criticisms that have been levied against this approach are valid, but many others are based on misconceptions of volatility, or they apply equally to comparative methods of estimating selection. Here, we introduce a simple regression technique for estimating selection pressures on all proteins in a genome, on the basis of limited comparative data. The regression technique does not depend on an underlying population-genetic mechanism. This new approach to estimating selection across a genome should be more powerful and more widely applicable than volatility itself.
Key Words: volatility codon usage selection comparative method
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