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Do Eve's alleles live on?

G A Watterson¹, P Donnelly

¹Department of Mathematics, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.

Genetical Research

|December 1, 1992

Summary

This study analyzes the descendants of the most recent common ancestor gene, "Eve," in neutral population genetics. It investigates the distribution and probability of Eve

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Area of Science:

Population Genetics
Evolutionary Biology
Molecular Evolution

Background:

The infinitely many neutral alleles model describes genetic variation in populations.
Identifying the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) and its descendants is crucial for understanding allele frequency distributions.
Previous work established distributions for the oldest allele type but not specifically for the MRCA's original allele type.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the distribution and moments of non-mutant descendants from the most recent common ancestor gene (Eve).
To analyze the behavior of Eve's allele proportion in large samples under neutral evolution.
To determine the probability of extinction for the ancestral allele and its implications for human mitochondrial DNA.

Main Methods:

Mathematical modeling of allele frequency dynamics under the infinitely many neutral alleles model.
Derivation of probability distributions and moments for the number of non-mutant descendants of Eve.
Analysis of large sample approximations for allele proportion densities.

Main Results:

The proportion of genes of Eve's type in large samples approximates a beta-like density with a potential atom at zero for low mutation rates.
The probability of extinction for Eve's original allele is bounded, indicating it is possible but not certain.
The study provides insights into the evolutionary fate of ancestral alleles.

Conclusions:

The distribution of Eve's non-mutant descendants is complex, with few simple analytical results.
The findings have implications for interpreting genetic diversity, particularly in human mitochondrial DNA studies.
Understanding ancestral allele dynamics is key to reconstructing evolutionary histories.

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