ArticleeLife2023
Broad-scale variation in human genetic diversity levels is predicted by purifying selection on coding and non-coding elements.
Article in eLife, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genomic insights into natural selection in recent human history.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Evolution of quantitative traits with background selection.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Long-term isolation and archaic introgression shape functional genetic variation in Near Oceania.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Causal inference clarifies the roles of background selection and mutation rate variation in shaping human genetic diversity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Ubiquitous impact of natural selection on nucleotide diversity in 178 species of primates.Genome biology · 2026Article
- Background selection in recombining genomes and its consequences for the maintenance of variation in complex traits.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- ThebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Estimating the Reduction in Genetic Diversity from Background Selection under Non-equilibrium Demography and Partial Selfing.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- The performance of genetic-constraint metrics varies significantly across the human noncoding genome.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Pleiotropy and the evolutionary stability of plastic phenotypes: a geometric framework.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- The impact of non-neutral synonymous mutations when inferring selection on nonsynonymous mutations.Genetics · 2025Article
- Multiple-testing corrections in selection scans using identity-by-descent segments.American journal of human genetics · 2025Article
- A model for background selection in non-equilibrium populations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Estimation of demography and mutation rates from one million haploid genomes.American journal of human genetics · 2025Article
- Not by Selection Alone: Expanding the Scope of Gene-Culture Coevolution.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- Robust and accurate Bayesian inference of genome-wide genealogies for hundreds of genomes.Nature genetics · 2025Article
- Increasing pathogenic germline variant diagnosis rates in precision medicine: current best practices and future opportunities.Human genomics · 2025Review
- When should adaptation arise from a polygenic response versus few large effect changes?bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Whole-Genome Sequencing Reveals the Role of Cis-Regulatory Elements and eQTL/sQTL in the Adaptive Selection of Hubei Indigenous Cattle.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Analyses of genetic variation in many taxa have established that neutral genetic diversity is shaped by natural selection at linked sites. Whether the mode of selection is primarily the fixation of strongly beneficial alleles (selective sweeps) or purifying selection on deleterious mutations (background selection) remains unknown, however. We address this question in humans by fitting a model of the joint effects of selective sweeps and background selection to autosomal polymorphism data from the 1000 Genomes Project. After controlling for variation in mutation rates along the genome, a model of background selection alone explains ~60% of the variance in diversity levels at the megabase scale. Adding the effects of selective sweeps driven by adaptive substitutions to the model does not improve the fit, and when both modes of selection are considered jointly, selective sweeps are estimated to have had little or no effect on linked neutral diversity. The regions under purifying selection are best predicted by phylogenetic conservation, with ~80% of the deleterious mutations affecting neutral diversity occurring in non-exonic regions. Thus, background selection is the dominant mode of linked selection in humans, with marked effects on diversity levels throughout autosomes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.