The effect of deleterious mutations and age on recombination in Drosophila melanogaster

At the population level, recombination mediates the efficiency with which selection can eliminate deleterious mutations. At the individual level, deleterious alleles may influence recombination, which would change the rate at which linkage disequilibrium is eroded and thereby alter the efficiency with which deleterious alleles are purged. Here we test whether the presence of a deleterious allele on one autosome affects recombination on another autosome. We find that deleterious alleles not only alter the rate but also the pattern of recombination. However, there is little support that different deleterious alleles affect recombination in a consistent manner. Because we have detailed information on individual females across their life times, we are able to examine how recombination patterns change with age and find that these patterns are also affected by the presence of deleterious alleles. The differences among genotypes or among age classes is large enough to add substantial noise to ...在种群层面上，重组（recombination）调控着选择清除有害突变的效率。在个体层面上，有害等位基因（deleterious allele）可对重组过程产生影响，进而改变连锁不平衡（linkage disequilibrium）的瓦解速率，从而影响有害等位基因的清除效率。本研究旨在检验：某条常染色体（autosome）上携带的有害等位基因，是否会对另一条常染色体上的重组过程产生影响。研究结果表明，有害等位基因不仅会改变重组速率，还会改变重组模式。然而，尚无充分证据显示不同的有害等位基因会以统一的方式影响重组过程。由于我们掌握了雌性个体整个生命周期的详细观测数据，因此可以探究重组模式随年龄的变化规律，并发现这类重组模式同样会受有害等位基因存在的影响。不同基因型（genotype）或不同年龄组（age class）间的差异足够显著，足以引入大量噪声至……