8.592 - HST.452J (Spring
2024)
Statistical Physics
in Biology
Lecture 3
Forces of evolution
- Reproduction leads to genetic drift
- Fisher-Wright process: binomial sampling with replacement in population of size N
- Allele frequency p (x=n/N in alternative notation) undergoes "diffusion" with D(p)=p(1-p)/4N
- Questions relevant to fixation: splitting probability, mean times to fixation or loss, ...
- Mutations:
- Responsible for maintaining diversity
- For a particular SNP can measure the allele frequency f(p)
- For human population [N~1,000-100,000] with \mu~10^{-9} expect N\mu << 1
- Selection:
- Acting on phenotypes, it pushes the distribution towards fitter values <\Delta p>=p(1-p)/2 *(d ln[w(p)]/dp)
- Fitness
- Selection/mutation balance
- Load of rare mutations (at single locus) on mean fitness of population: w(q_{ss}~1-2\mu is independent of selection factor s!
- Assuming that the effects of additional loci are multiplicative, genome wide (damaging) mutation rate of W~e^{-2\sum_i\mu_i}
- This appears to result in a very high rate of genetic death of close to 98%
- Muller's ratchet and population melt-down counteracted by sexual recombination [Sex and U]
- Explanatory websites (from past 8.592 projects)
(MK lecture notes)
8.592 lec3- last update 9/11/2024 by
M. Kardar