Adaptive protein evolution in Drosophila

Nick G. C. Smith and Adam Eyre-Walker ()
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Nick G. C. Smith: Centre for the Study of Evolution and School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex
Adam Eyre-Walker: Centre for the Study of Evolution and School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex

Nature, 2002, vol. 415, issue 6875, 1022-1024

Abstract: Abstract For over 30 years a central question in molecular evolution has been whether natural selection plays a substantial role in evolution at the DNA sequence level1,2. Evidence has accumulated over the last decade that adaptive evolution does occur at the protein level3,4, but it has remained unclear how prevalent adaptive evolution is. Here we present a simple method by which the number of adaptive substitutions can be estimated and apply it to data from Drosophila simulans and D. yakuba. We estimate that 45% of all amino-acid substitutions have been fixed by natural selection, and that on average one adaptive substitution occurs every 45 years in these species.

Date: 2002
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DOI: 10.1038/4151022a

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