title: Polymorphism and divergence at the prune locus in Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans.
abstract: The prune locus of Drosophila melanogaster lies at the tip of the X chromosome, in a region of reduced recombination in which nearby loci show reduced variation relative to evolutionary divergence from D. simulans. DNA sequencing of prune alleles from D. melanogaster and D. simulans reveals extremely low variation in D. melanogaster but greater variation in D. simulans. Divergence between the two species is not reduced. This pattern may be explained by either positive selection leading to hitchhiking of neutral variation or background selection against deleterious mutations. The pattern of silent versus replacement polymorphism and divergence at prune is consistent with either a model of weakly deleterious selection against amino acid substitutions or balancing selection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, City College, City University of New York, New York 10031.
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Simmons
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kwok
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Matulonis
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Venkatesh
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D004330:Drosophila / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics; D005127:Eye Color / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D011621:Pteridines / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; C070996:PN protein, Drosophila; D011506:Proteins; D011621:Pteridines; C020306:drosopterin