https://www.scienceblogs.com/ en https://www.scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2009/06/03/genetic-complexity <span>Genetic complexity</span> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p>Razib from Gene Expression has <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/06/natural_selection_of_a_human_g.php">a frankly heroic post</a> up dissecting <a href="http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/msp108">a recent paper on genetic variation around the <i>FUT2</i> gene</a>, which encodes a cell surface protein involved in the pathway that produces the ABO blood group antigens.</p> <p>The story illustrates some of the difficulties associated with extracting information about human evolution from genetic sequence data. There is fairly compelling <i>a priori</i> evidence for natural selection having a strong effect on this gene during recent human evolution, but even with data on genetic variation from a large sample of worldwide populations it is difficult to extract a clear picture of exactly what has gone on.</p> <p>Razib does a great job of conveying the complexity of the resulting data, and of putting the results in a broader context - <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/06/natural_selection_of_a_human_g.php">check it out</a>.</p> <p>Incidentally, Razib has four posts nominated for the <a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/the-nominees-for-the-3qd-prize-in-science-are.html">3 Quarks Daily Prize in Science</a> - if you like his work, you should go vote for it right now. Other genomics entries include <a href="http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/01/19/ten_years_after_the_genomics_frenzy.php">Derek Lowe's piece on the genomics frenzy of the 90s</a>, and <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2008/09/your_own_private_genome.php">my own post on the value of a genome sequence</a>.</p> <p> </p><div> <p style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/scienceblogs/geneticfuture" type="application/rss+xml" style="text-decoration: underline;"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" style="border-width: 0px;" /></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/scienceblogs/geneticfuture" type="application/rss+xml" style="text-decoration: underline;">Subscribe to Genetic Future</a>.</p> <p style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal;"></p> </div> </div> <span><a title="View user profile." href="/author/dgmacarthur" lang="" about="/author/dgmacarthur" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">dgmacarthur</a></span> <span>Wed, 06/03/2009 - 13:24</span> <div class="field field--name-field-blog-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-inline"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field--items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tag/evolutionary-genetics" hreflang="en">evolutionary genetics</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tag/selection-candidate-genes" hreflang="en">selection on candidate genes</a></div> </div> </div> <section> </section> <ul class="links inline list-inline"><li class="comment-forbidden"><a href="/user/login?destination=/geneticfuture/2009/06/03/genetic-complexity%23comment-form">Log in</a> to post comments</li></ul> Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:24:28 +0000 dgmacarthur 140308 at https://www.scienceblogs.com