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How was the Sdic gene fixed?

Abstract

Nurminsky et al.1 have described a new gene of Drosophila melanogaster, termed Sdic (for sperm-specific dynein, intermediate chain), which appears to have evolved recently as a result of fusion between duplicated copies of two adjacent genes, Cdic and AnnX. They consider that the low DNA sequence variation at Sdic and Cdic is consistent with a recent ‘selective sweep’ associated with the fixation of Sdic. (In a selective sweep, new favourable mutations are incorporated so rapidly that linked alleles can ‘hitchhike’ and become fixed.) Here we evaluate the evidence for this proposal.

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Charlesworth, B., Charlesworth, D. How was the Sdic gene fixed?. Nature 400, 519–520 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/22922

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