Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on April 15, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2008 25(7):1257-1259; doi:10.1093/molbev/msn091
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Material
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
25/7/1257    most recent
msn091v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Coop, G.
Right arrow Articles by Przeworski, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Coop, G.
Right arrow Articles by Przeworski, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2008 The Authors.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Letters

The Timing of Selection at the Human FOXP2 Gene

Graham Coop*, Kevin Bullaughey{dagger}, Francesca Luca* and Molly Przeworski*

* Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago
{dagger} Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago

E-mail: mfp{at}uchicago.edu

Accepted for publication April 7, 2008.

Krause J, Lalueza-Fox C, Orlando L, et al. recently examined patterns of genetic variation at FOXP2 in 2 Neanderthals. This gene is of particular interest because it is involved in speech and language and was previously shown to harbor the signature of recent positive selection. The authors found the same 2 amino acid substitutions in Neanderthals as in modern humans. Assuming that these sites were the targets of selection and no interbreeding between the 2 groups, they concluded that selection at FOXP2 occurred before the populations split, over 300 thousand years ago. Here, we show that the data are unlikely under this scenario but may instead be consistent with low rates of gene flow between modern humans and Neanderthals. We also collect additional data and introduce a modeling framework to estimate levels of modern human contamination of the Neanderthal samples. We find that, depending on the assumptions, additional control experiments may be needed to rule out contamination at FOXP2.

Key Words: selective sweep • ancient DNA • Neanderthal • FOXP2

Dan Graur, Associate Editor


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.