Abstract

With the aims of understanding the mechanisms of maintenance of genetic variablity and evolution of populations and utilizing the genetic polymorphism in man for medical and forensic purposes, three coherent research projects are proposed. (1) Genetic differentiation of populations. Mathematical theories of the evolutionary change of restriction site pattern of DNA, probability distribution of genetic distance, and evolutionary process of the establishment of reproductive isolation in speciation will be developed. Statistical methods of constructing phylogenetic trees or denrograms by using gene frequency data will also be studied. In addition to these theoretical studies data on the interspecific or interracial differences of restriction site maps in mitrochondrial and nuclear DNAs will be analyzed by using the statistical methods newly developed. All available data on protein and DNA polymorphisms will be compiled from many different human populations, and the pattern and mechanism of evolution of human races will be investigated. (2) Genetic variability and its maintenance in populations. Mathematical models for studying DNA polymorphisms in terms of restriction enzymes will be studied by considering synonymous and nonsynonymous substitutions, the difference in the rate of nucleotide substitutions among the three nucleotide positions of codons, and deletion and insertion. Mathematical studies will also be conducted about the effects of selection, particularly fluctuating selection, on the amount and pattern of protein polymorphism in natural populations. (3) Utility of marker genes for genetic counseling and paternity test. Mathematical methods will be developed for computing the risk of genetic diseases and the proportion of informative families when restriction site markers in DNA are used for genetic counseling. Mathematical methods for computing the probabilities of excluding and identifying paternity for a given pair of mother and child by using genetic markers will also be studied.

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01GM020293-14
Application #
3269979
Study Section
Genetics Study Section (GEN)
Project Start
1979-02-01
Project End
1987-01-31
Budget Start
1986-02-01
Budget End
1987-01-31
Support Year
14
Fiscal Year
1986
Total Cost
Indirect Cost

  Institution

Name
University of Texas Health Science Center Houston
Department
Type
Overall Medical
DUNS #
City
Houston
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
77225

  Publications

Nozawa, Masafumi; Miura, Sayaka; Nei, Masatoshi (2012) Origins and evolution of microRNA genes in plant species. Genome Biol Evol 4:230-9
Nei, Masatoshi; Nozawa, Masafumi (2011) Roles of mutation and selection in speciation: from Hugo de Vries to the modern genomic era. Genome Biol Evol 3:812-29
Miura, Sayaka; Nozawa, Masafumi; Nei, Masatoshi (2011) Evolutionary changes of the target sites of two microRNAs encoded in the Hox gene cluster of Drosophila and other insect species. Genome Biol Evol 3:129-39
Nei, Masatoshi; Suzuki, Yoshiyuki; Nozawa, Masafumi (2010) The neutral theory of molecular evolution in the genomic era. Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet 11:265-89
Das, Sabyasachi; Mohamedy, Uzra; Hirano, Masayuki et al. (2010) Analysis of the immunoglobulin light chain genes in zebra finch: evolutionary implications. Mol Biol Evol 27:113-20
Takezaki, Naoko; Nei, Masatoshi; Tamura, Koichiro (2010) POPTREE2: Software for constructing population trees from allele frequency data and computing other population statistics with Windows interface. Mol Biol Evol 27:747-52
Nozawa, Masafumi; Miura, Sayaka; Nei, Masatoshi (2010) Origins and evolution of microRNA genes in Drosophila species. Genome Biol Evol 2:180-9
Nozawa, Masafumi; Suzuki, Yoshiyuki; Nei, Masatoshi (2009) Reliabilities of identifying positive selection by the branch-site and the site-prediction methods. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:6700-5
Das, Sabyasachi; Nikolaidis, Nikolas; Nei, Masatoshi (2009) Genomic organization and evolution of immunoglobulin kappa gene enhancers and kappa deleting element in mammals. Mol Immunol 46:3171-7
Xu, Guixia; Ma, Hong; Nei, Masatoshi et al. (2009) Evolution of F-box genes in plants: different modes of sequence divergence and their relationships with functional diversification. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:835-40

Showing the most recent 10 out of 75 publications