Microevolutionary processes analysis in the Lithuanian genome

Abstract

Differences in the relative fitness of genomic variants are foundational, without these, neither natural selection nor adaption can exist. This research analyzed two microevolutionary forces, mutations, and positive selection, using whole genome sequencing data from Lithuanians across three generations: newborns (generation I), their parents (generation II), 60 years old Lithuanians, and the root ancestors (generation III). The main objective was to determine the frequency of mutations under selection in modern humans and how allele frequencies change across generations. Our results show that going through all the landscapes of the relative fitness on each chromosome, the general relative fitness background pattern remains the same in analysed generations. However, the tendency of relative fitness to decrease, in general, is noted. We hypothesize that the de novo genome variants or genome variants with a very low frequency that formed in the previous generation did not have time to be as affected by natural selection, thus, in the following generation, the force of natural selection acting on them is greater and their cumulative relative fitness also decreases. The strong natural selection pressure on the genetic regions that encode the NEGR1 and PTPN1/PTNP21 genes were also identified, highlighting the evolution of the Lithuanian population’s genome over generations, and possible genomic “deficiencies” for better adaptation.