Biased gene conversion (BGC) is a neutral mutation process associated with meiotic recombination, which favors a special kind of mutation pattern (Marais 2003).
In this case, we suggested that actin gene family experienced a duplication followed by mutation process, according with birth and death model of evolution.
The simulated mutations were generated using ten mutational processes with distinct signatures each with 96 mutation types (equivalent to the six substitution types and their immediate 5′ and 3′ sequence context).
Generally, it is suggested that mutation process should occur with a low probability.
A recurrent mutation process was applied with a mutation rate for SNPs and QTL of 1.0 × 10−4 per locus per generation.
Our model selection approach is able to find three reproducible mutational processes with these 1,536 mutation types.
Under this alternative scenario, the nucleotides that are subject to the transcription coupled mutation process should always increase with expression (i.e., GC content should increase with expression if the transcription-induced mutation bias goes from AT→GC).
The mutation process allows an individual with larger fitness to produce more offspring for the next generation.
This mutation process satisfies detailed balance, with stationary distribution given by the frequencies f(n) independently of the transition-tranversion ratio k that, therefore, is expected to have no influence on the stationary amino acid distribution as well.
