Re: Part 1 (of 3): What are major aspects of evolutionary theory?

anon1@xxxxxxx wrote:

>>Most sites in the human genome are evolving neutrally.
>
> Now that the haplotype map is out, I have a question: What are the
> statistics of haplotype blocks in regard to neutral vs. non-neutral
> evolution?

I don't know what you mean by "haplotype block".

> I.e. which haplotype blocks contain at least one selected
> gene within it, forcing the entire block to evolve in accord with that
> gene, and which haplotype blocks don't contain any selected gene at
> all, allowing the entire block to drift randomly without any
> constraint?

Ah, here you are apparently talking about frequency of recombination. Is
"haplotype block" some kind of synonym for "linkage group"? I really
don't know about recombination frequency through the human genome. But
the presence of one site under selection does not alter the question of
whether even an adjacent site is evolving neutrally. It just means that
if there is a selective sweep, variation at those neutral sites will be
reduced.

> What are the statistics of these two kinds of blocks? For
> example, are the lengths of blocks statistically the same between the
> two kinds of blocks, and then in total 80% of the blocks are devoid of
> any active selection site while all the active selection sites are
> concentrated within the remaining 20%? So then 80% of sites are within
> those 80% neutral blocks while 20% of sites are within the 20% actively
> selected blocks?

There is, to my knowledge, no such block structure as you imply here.
There are regions in which recombination is more or less frequent, but I
wouldn't say that talking about "blocks" does more than confuse what
structure there is.

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