title: Hubby and Lewontin on Protein Variation in Natural Populations: When Molecular Genetics Came to the Rescue of Population Genetics.
abstract: The 1966 GENETICS papers by John Hubby and Richard Lewontin were a landmark in the study of genome-wide levels of variability. They used the technique of gel electrophoresis of enzymes and proteins to study variation in natural populations of Drosophila pseudoobscura, at a set of loci that had been chosen purely for technical convenience, without prior knowledge of their levels of variability. Together with the independent study of human populations by Harry Harris, this seminal study provided the first relatively unbiased picture of the extent of genetic variability in protein sequences within populations, revealing that many genes had surprisingly high levels of diversity. These papers stimulated a large research program that found similarly high electrophoretic variability in many different species and led to statistical tools for interpreting the data in terms of population genetics processes such as genetic drift, balancing and purifying selection, and the effects of selection on linked variants. The current use of whole-genome sequences in studies of variation is the direct descendant of this pioneering work.
authors: Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FL, United Kingdom Brian.Charlesworth@ed.ac.uk.
authors: Brian
authors: 0000-0002-2706-355X
authors: B
authors: Charlesworth
authors: Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, EH9 3FL, United Kingdom.
authors: Deborah
authors: D
authors: Charlesworth
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Illinois 60637.
authors: Jerry A
authors: JA
authors: Coyne
authors: Department of Evolution and Ecology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, California 95616.
authors: Charles H
authors: CH
authors: Langley
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence / Q000235:genetics*; D040961:Genetic Drift; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D005828:Genetics, Population; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans; D008967:Molecular Biology; D012641:Selection, Genetic
keywords: Hubby; Lewontin; electrophoresis; heterozygosity; molecular variation