Comparison of spatial distribution patterns of SNPs throughout the evolution

Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) is the most common type of genetic variations which include onlysubstitution of one basepair within the DNA sequence. Associations have been found between SNPs andmany illnesses in human; while the severity of illness and how the body responds to the treatments are alsoassociated with variations caused by the SNPs. Around ۴ to ۵ million SNP incidents have been found inhuman genome which are detected using bioinformatics tools and various methods such as SNP microarrays.Previous Studies have shown that SNPs are not monotonously distributed along the DNA or do not follow anormal distribution pattern. SNPs are in fact clustered, while the density of those clusters is higher in Xchromosome than the Autosomal chromosomes. around ۲۵.۴% of SNPs have at least a neighboring SNPwithin ۲۵ bp. The proportion of adjacent SNPs increase sharply as we move towards the shorter mutualdistances. do the mutation hotspots or the SNP clusters change their location on the genome through theevolution process? and is there pattern for this movement?Advanced and high throughput methods of genome sequencing have made much more data availableregarding SNPs on various species. The present study aims to investigate the spatial distribution of SNPs ingenomes of few selected species and tries to explore the SNP hotspot movement patterns and the differencesof their distribution throughout the evolution process. As we find the spatial distribution of SNPs whichsomehow shows the mutational hotspots, this possibility may arise that significant patterns for SNP clustermovements through chromosomes of various parts of the genome emerge. This could in turn lead toexploration of new evolutionary trends and its potential association between the spatial concentration of SNPswithin various genotypes and their physical phenotypes observed through the evolution process of species.

Keywords:

Single Nucleotide Polymorphism , spatial distribution , mutation hotspot , evolution pattern