Genetic Signatures of Drug Response Variability in .

Knowledge of the genetic basis underlying variation in response to environmental exposures or treatments is important in many research areas. For example, knowing the set of causal genetic variants for drug responses could revolutionize personalized medicine. We used to investigate the genetic signature underlying behavioral variability in response to methylphenidate (MPH), a drug used in the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Nucleotide diversity inflation as a genome-wide response to experimental lifespan extension in Drosophila melanogaster.

Background: Evolutionary theory predicts that antagonistically selected alleles, such as those with divergent pleiotropic effects in early and late life, may often reach intermediate population frequencies due to balancing selection, an elusive process when sought out empirically. Alternatively, genetic diversity may increase as a result of positive frequency-dependent selection and genetic purging in bottlenecked populations.

Results: While experimental evolution systems with directional phenotypic selection typically result in at least local heterozygosity loss, we report that selection for increased lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster leads to an extensive genome-wide increase of nucleotide diversity in the selected lines compared to replicate control lines, pronounced in regions with no or low recombination, such as chromosome 4 and centromere neighborhoods.