Abstract
The ratio of X-linked to autosomal diversity was estimated from an analysis of six human genome sequences and found to deviate from the expected value of 0.75. However, the direction of this deviation depends on whether a particular sequence is close to or far from the nearest gene. This pattern may be explained by stronger locally acting selection on X-linked genes compared with autosomal genes, combined with larger effective population sizes for females than for males.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Keinan, A., Mullikin, J.C., Patterson, N. & Reich, D. Nat. Genet. 41, 66–70 (2009).
Hammer, M.F., Mendez, F.L., Cox, M.P., Woerner, A.E. & Wall, J.D. PLoS Genet. 4, e1000202 (2008).
Bustamante, C.D. & Ramachandran, S. Nat. Genet. 41, 8–10 (2009).
Charlesworth, B., Morgan, M.T. & Charlesworth, D. Genetics 134, 1289–1303 (1993).
Smith, J.M. & Haigh, J. Genet. Res. 23, 23–35 (1974).
Pool, J.E. & Nielsen, R. Evolution 61, 3001–3006 (2007).
Vicoso, B. & Charlesworth, B. Genetics 181, 1699–1701 (2009).
Charlesworth, B. Genet. Res. 68, 131–149 (1996).
Hudson, R.R. & Kaplan, N.L. Genetics 141, 1605–1617 (1995).
Lu, J. & Wu, C.I. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 4063–4067 (2005).
Tapper, W. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 11835–11839 (2005).
Wang, E.T., Kodama, G., Baldi, P. & Moyzis, R.K. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 135–140 (2006).
Betancourt, A.J., Kim, Y. & Orr, H.A. Genetics 168, 2261–2269 (2004).
Ross, M.T. et al. Nature 434, 325–337 (2005).
Payseur, B.A. & Nachman, M.W. Mol. Biol. Evol. 19, 336–340 (2002).
Acknowledgements
We thank O. Savina for excellent computational support and M. Nachman for comments on the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
M.F.H., A.E.W. and J.D.W. conceived and designed the study and wrote the paper. F.L.M., M.P.C. and J.C.W. designed the statistical analyses. A.E.W. performed bioinformatics and statistical analyses. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Text and Figures
Supplementary Tables 1–4, Supplementary Figures 1–4 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 387 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hammer, M., Woerner, A., Mendez, F. et al. The ratio of human X chromosome to autosome diversity is positively correlated with genetic distance from genes. Nat Genet 42, 830–831 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.651
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.651
This article is cited by
-
Human paternal and maternal demographic histories: insights from high-resolution Y chromosome and mtDNA sequences
Investigative Genetics (2014)
-
How closely does genetic diversity in finite populations conform to predictions of neutral theory? Large deficits in regions of low recombination
Heredity (2012)
-
Sex-chromosome evolution: recent progress and the influence of male and female heterogamety
Nature Reviews Genetics (2011)