Based on multiple sequence alignments and phylogenetic tree reconstructions, the authors conclude that the MHC class I genes in these species are subject to concerted evolution by means of gene conversion.
To address this question, Flint et al. [ 231, 233] proposed that the HbS mutation arose only once in Africa, and was transferred to other genetic backgrounds by means of gene conversion of short stretches assisted by a meiotic recombination hotspot (which, from a traditional perspective, just happens to be there).
Thus they should mention that their data gives a range of 100-1000bp buthesese values provide no indication on the mean value of gene conversion tract length.
A further, less common mechanism involves inactivation of the first two genes of the array by a mutation that is transferred from one gene to another by means of NHR or gene conversion [ Reyniers et al., 1995; Gardner et al., 2010].
The contradiction between these findings and our results might be explained by the important contribution of gene conversion to the mean rate of recombination in higher plants.
Please clarify the following point in the subsection "GC-biased gene conversion": do you mean that another PRDM9 site is detected away from the NCO? Figure 4A plots shorter tracts are unclear.
Furthermore, the recombinant we isolated between the temperature sensitive mutant and ATP6[1] showing exchange of a continuous 7.5kb fragment, which is well above the mean tract length of nuclear meiotic gene conversion (using the data and model of Hilliker et al., 1994 for meiotic nuclear events, the probability of a gene conversion track of this length would be less than 10-9).
Please clarify the following point in the subsection "GC-biased gene conversion": do you mean that another PRDM9 site is detected away from the NCO? Yes, these other PRDM9 motifs are near the NCO site but do not overlap with it.
We show that modeling overlapping gene conversions is crucial for improving the joint estimation of the gene conversion rate and the mean conversion tract length.
In this article, we devise algorithms to incorporate overlapping gene conversions into the PAC model and show that this modification dramatically improves the estimation of the gene conversion rate and the mean conversion tract length.
