Originally published as Genetics Published Articles Ahead of Print on February 4, 2007.

Genetics, Vol. 175, 1923-1935, April 2007, Copyright © 2007
doi:10.1534/genetics.106.068015

Unusual Pattern of Nucleotide Sequence Variation at the OS-E and OS-F Genomic Regions of Drosophila simulans

Alejandro Sánchez-Gracia1 and Julio Rozas2

Departament de Genètica, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain

2 Corresponding author: Departament de Genètica, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
E-mail: jrozas{at}ub.edu

Nucleotide variation at the genomic region encompassing the odorant-binding protein genes OS-E and OS-F (OS region) was surveyed in two populations of Drosophila simulans, one from Europe and the other from Africa. We found that the European population shows an atypical and large haplotype structure, which extends throughout the ~5-kb surveyed genomic region. This structure is depicted by two major haplotype groups segregating at intermediate frequency in the sample, one haplogroup with nearly no variation, and the other at levels more typical for this species. This pattern of variation was incompatible with neutral predictions for a population at a stationary equilibrium. Nevertheless, neutrality tests contrasting polymorphism and divergence data fail to detect any departure from the standard neutral model in this species, whereas they confirm the non-neutral behavior previously observed at the OS-E gene in D. melanogaster. Although positive Darwinian selection may have been responsible for the observed unusual nucleotide variation structure, coalescent simulation results do not allow rejecting the hypothesis that the pattern was generated by a recent bottleneck in the history of European populations of D. simulans.