Evidence map›Paper›PMID 18558659›Full record

ArticleGenetics2008

The anomalous effects of biased mutation revisited: mean-optimum deviation and apparent directional selection under stabilizing selection.

Xu-Sheng Zhang, William G Hill

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Genetics, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed
0.2field-weighted citation impact, top 36% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Mutation-selection-drift balance models of complex diseases.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Empirical measures of mutational effects define neutral models of regulatory evolution inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Xu-Sheng ZhangInstitute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, United Kingdom. xu-sheng.zhang@ed.ac.uk
William G Hill
University of Edinburgh · GB

Funding

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council 15/G13242Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council G20339
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Empirical evidence indicates that the distribution of the effects of mutations on quantitative traits is not symmetric about zero. Under stabilizing selection in infinite populations with normally distributed mutant effects having a nonzero mean, Waxman and Peck showed that the deviation of the population mean from the optimum is expected to be small. We show by simulation that genetic drift, leptokurtosis of mutational effects, and pleiotropy can increase the mean-optimum deviation greatly, however, and that the apparent directional selection thereby caused can be substantial.

Indexed as

Models, GeneticMutationSelection, GeneticGenetics, PopulationGenetic VariationGenomic InstabilityMathematicsQuantitative Trait, Heritable

Identifiers

PMID18558659
PMCPMC2429868
OpenAlexW2097765028

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.