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Existing methods are effective at measuring natural selection on gene expression

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 1836–1837 (2022)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 07 November 2022

The Original Article was published on 12 May 2022

arising from P. D. Price et al. Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01761-8 (2022)

The recent work by Price et al.1. covers a question of great importance: how to detect natural selection on gene expression. In particular, the paper focuses on how changes in cell-type abundances between species can impact bulk gene expression measurements, often leading to incorrect inferences of selection. The authors imply that this issue has not been addressed except by a single recent study: “Most studies that test for selection on the transcriptome use expression data generated from heterogeneous tissue, except for recent work that used cell sorting to isolate distinct cell types in mouse testes66.” Referring to biases related to changes in cell-type abundance, they also state, “Unfortunately, we are not aware of a simple solution for correcting the biases we have uncovered, beyond recommending the use of single cell data to study expression evolution where possible.”

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  1. Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Hunter B. Fraser

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  1. Hunter B. Fraser
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Correspondence to Hunter B. Fraser.

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Fraser, H.B. Existing methods are effective at measuring natural selection on gene expression. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 1836–1837 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01889-7

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