Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Equations for Selection Under Complete Dominance

Kasthuri Kannan

NYU School of Medicine, New York

In this talk, we derive equations for natural selection under complete dominance. Invoking a key result from mathematical analysis, namely, the inverse function theorem, we estimate the selection coefficients acting on alleles. While existing equations for selection explain evolution at low allele frequencies, our equations are general formulas for natural selection under complete dominance operating at all frequencies. We show that selection exhibits linear behavior at all times, favoring dominant alleles with respect to the change in recessive allele frequencies. Also, these equations show, selection behaves like power-law against the recessive alleles at low dominant allele frequencies. We demonstrate the application of this model using allele frequencies of oncogenic mutations.