A selective sweep is the reduction or elimination of variation among the nucleotides in neighboring DNA of a mutation as the result of recent and strong positive natural selection.
A selective sweep can occur when a new mutation occurs that increases the fitness of the carrier relative to other members of the population. Natural selection will favour individuals that have a higher fitness and with time the newly mutated variant (allele) will increase in frequency relative to other alleles. As its prevalence increases, neutral and nearly neutral genetic variation linked to the new mutation will also become more prevalent. This phenomenon is called genetic hitchhiking. A strong selective sweep results in a region of the genome where the positively selected haplotype (the mutated allele and its neighbours) is essentially the only one that exists in the population, resulting in a large reduction of the total genetic variation in that chromosome region.
Read more about Selective Sweep: Detecting Selective Sweeps, Relevance To Disease, Involvement in Agriculture and Domestication, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words selective and/or sweep:
“The selective memory isn’t selective enough.”
—Blake Morrison (b. 1950)
“I make no secret of the fact that I would rather lie on a sofa than sweep beneath it. But you have to be efficient if you’re going to be lazy.”
—Shirley Conran (b. 1932)