Dr. Adam Eyre-Walker
Name
consider including your title – Prof, Dr, Ms
etc – as a kindness to those who write to
you, but its not essential
Royal Society University Research Fellow
Position
e.g. Reader in Evolutionary Biology,
Royal Society Fellow,
DPhil (John Maynard Smith Scholarship)
Gwenael Piganeau (post-doc)
Lab Group
for faculty, list the people that you
Nicolas Bierne (post-doc)
supervise, in the format:
Elise Belle (DPhil student)
Albert Einstein (Postdoc)
Megan Woolfit (DPhil student)
Ned Kelly (DPhil Student)
Supervisor
for postdocs & students (list all if you have
more than one)
+44 (0)1273 678480
Phone
In the format: +44 (0)1273 873 660
Leave blank only if you do not want your
number on the website
BIOLS 5B8
Office
in the format: BUILDING, room
e.g. BIOLS, 5B16
a.c.eyre-walker@sussex.ac.uk
Email
Homepage if you already have your own
page, give the URL
Research focus in the following format(text can be in the form of a list or bullet points if
you like):
Short title (≤10words) The rates and effects of mutations
Brief user-friendly description (≤ 100 words).
Mutations are the ultimate source of all genetic variation but until recently we had
few estimates of how frequently mutations occurred or what their effects were. We
have been addressing both of these problems using DNA sequence data. We have
recently estimated minimum rates of harmful mutation in a range of animal species,
including our own. We have also been attempting to estimate the rate of adaptive
amino acid substitution and the proportion of mutations which are slightly
deleterious.
Research Focus 2: The Evolution of Isochores
Base composition varies along mammalian chromosomes over very large scales of
hundreds of kilobases. This structure has been called the isochore structure of the
genome. The origins of this structure remain unclear. It has been suggested that it
might be a consequence of neutral processes, either mutation bias or biased gene
conversion, or natural selection. We have been using a variety of approaches to test
whether the structure is being actively maintained, and if it is, what process is
responsible for its maintainence.
Research Focus 3: Recombination in mitochondria
It is generally thought that mitochondria are solely inherited from one parent,
usually the male, in higher plants and animals, and that mtDNA is clonally inherited
without recombination. We have been attempting to test whether recombination
occurs in mtDNA in a variety of animals, including humans.
Teaching
Courses you teach at Sussex, in the format: Course name (your role) Course URL
e.g. Topics in Evolutionary Theory (co-ordinator)
http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/ugteach/course/topet.htm
Evolution 1 (tutor) http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/ugteach/course/evol1.htm
Molecular Ecology and Evolution
Selected publications: include only your top ten (or less) here – choose the ones you are
most proud of, or that show your research interests best. Publications should be in this
format (see below for more details):
Surname Initial, Surname Initial (Year) Title. Journal Volume:Pages [file.pdf]
Include the pdf file name in square brackets only if you are able to provide a pdf file of
this publication for people to download- see below for details.
Smith, NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2003) Partitioning the variation in mammalian substitution rates.
Molecular Biology and Evolution (in press)
Eyre-Walker A, Keightley PD, Smith NGC, Gaffney D (2002) Quantifying the slightly deleterious
model of molecular evolution. Molecular Biology and Evolution (in press)
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2002) Adaptive protein evolution in Drosophila. Nature 415:10221024 [SmithNature02.pdf]
Belle EMS, Eyre-Walker A (2002) A test of whether selection maintains isochores using sites
polymorphic for Alu and L1 elements. Genetics 160:815-817 [BelleGenetics02.pdf]
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2001) Synonymous codon bias is not caused by mutation bias in
G+C rich genes in humans. Molecular Biology and Evolution 18:982-986 [SmithMBE01iso.pdf]
Keightley PD, Eyre-Walker A (2000) Deleterious mutations and the evolution of sex. Science 290:
331-333 [KeightleyScience00.pdf]
Awadalla P, Eyre-Walker A., Maynard Smith J. (1999) Linkage disequilibrium and
recombination in hominid mitochondrial DNA. Science 286: 2524-2525 [AwadallaScience99.pdf]
Eyre-Walker A, Keightley PD (1999) High genomic deleterious mutation rates in hominids.
Nature 397: 344-347 [EWNature99.pdf]
Eyre-Walker A (1998) Problems with parsimony in sequences of biased base composition.
Journal of Molecular Evolution 47: 686-690 [EWJME98.pdf]
Eyre-Walker A (1993). Recombination and genome evolution in mammals. Proceedings of the
Royal Society Series B. 252: 237-243 [EW.PRS93.pdf]
Complete publication list
This is optional, but you can include every last obscure conference proceeding if you like,
following citation style described below. NB if you have included all of your publications
above leave this box blank
Eyre-Walker A (2003) Changing effective population size and the McDonald-Kreitman test.
Genetics (in press)
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2003) Partitioning the variation in mammalian substitution rates.
Molecular Biology and Evolution (in press)
Eyre-Walker A, Keightley PD, Smith NGC, Gaffney D (2002) Quantifying the slightly deleterious
model of molecular evolution. Molecular Biology and Evolution (in press)
Belle EMS, Eyre-Walker A (2002) Analysis of the phylogenetic distribution of isochores in
vertebrates and a test of the thermal stability hypothesis. Journal of Molecular Evolution. 55: 356363
Belle EMS, Eyre-Walker A (2002) A test of whether selection maintains isochores using sites
polymorphic for Alu and L1 elements. Genetics 160: 815-817 [BelleGenetics02.pdf]
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2002) Adaptive protein evolution in Drosophila. Nature 415: 10221024 [SmithNature02.pdf]
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2002) The compositional evolution of the murid genome. Journal of
Molecular Evolution 55: 197-201 [SmithJME02.pdf]
Eyre-Walker A (2002) Codon Usage Bias. Encyclopedia of Evolution.
Eyre-Walker A, Hurst LD (2001) The evolution of isochores. Nature Reviews Genetics 2: 549-555
[EWNRG01.pdf]
Eyre-Walker A, Awadalla P (2001) Does human mtDNA recombine? Journal of Molecular
Evolution 53: 430-435 [EWJME01.pdf]
Keightley PD, Eyre-Walker A (2001) Response to Kondrashov : Sex and U. Trends in Genetics 17:
77-78 [KeightleyTIG01.pdf]
Eyre-Walker A (2001) Base composition patterns. Encyclopedia of Life Sciences.
Meunier J, Eyre-Walker A (2001) The Correlation between Linkage Disequilibrium and Distance.
Implications for Recombination in Hominid Mitochondria. Molecular Biology and Evolution 18:
2127-2131 [MeunierJME01.pdf]
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2001) Nucleotide Substitution Rate Estimation in Enterobacteria:
Approximate and Maximum-Likelihood Methods Lead to Similar Conclusions Molecular Biology
and Evolution 18: 2124-2126 [SmithMBE01ecoli.pdf]
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2001) Why are translationally sub-optimal synonymous codons used
in Escherichia coli ? Journal of Molecular Evolution 53: 225-236 [SmithJME01syn.pdf]
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A. (2001) A test of amino acid reversibility. Journal of Molecular
Evolution 52: 467-469 [SmithJME01amino.pdf]
Smith NGC, Eyre-Walker A (2001) Synonymous codon bias is not caused by mutation bias in
G+C rich genes in humans. Molecular Biology and Evolution 18: 982-986 [SmithMBE01iso.pdf]
Keightley PD, Eyre-Walker A (2000) Deleterious mutations and the evolution of sex. Science 290:
331-333 [KeightleyScience00.pdf]
Eyre-Walker A (2000) Do mitochondria recombine in humans? Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society Series B. 355: 1573-1580 [EWPTRS00.pdf]
Picture: attach file and write name here in
the format: YourSurname.webpic.format
e.g. Belle.webpic.jpg
EEW.webpic.jpg
Picture
You MUST include a picture for your webpage. You can choose anything, but here are
some suggestions:
1. a picture of you
2. a picture of your lab group, your study animal, or some such work related thing
3. a picture of something is part of your life - your garden, your favourite ecosystem,
whatever.
Preferred format: jpeg
Format for listing publications.
All publications should be listed in a standard format as follows:
Surname Initial, Surname Initial (Year) Title. Journal Volume:Pages
Note that it has no bold or italics or any other fancy formatting (except italics for species
names etc). If you use Endnote, export as Journal of Molecular Evolution format. It has
been requested that we include full journal titles, but if this is a problem, then use
abbreviations.
Here are examples for journal articles, books, book chapter.
Bromham L, Clark F, McKee JJ (2001) Discovery of a novel murine type C retrovirus
by datamining. Journal of Virology 75:3053-3057 [Bromham.JME96.pdf]
Sowls L (1984) The peccaries. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona
Fuller MT (1993) Spermatogenesis. In: Bate M, Arias AM (eds) The development of
Drosophila melanogaster. Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbour,
NY, p 71 - 147
pdf downloads of your publications
this is optional, but you are encouraged to include pdf files of as many of your top ten
publications as possible for people to download. This makes your best work easily
accessible to anyone who is interested. Don’t ask me about the copyright implications
because I havent a clue.
Please send publications (in pdf format only) with your datasheet and photo to Noel
(noel@sussex.ac.uk) with the file name format:
YourSurname.JournalYear.pdf.
e.g. Bromham.JME96.pdf, Woolfit.Evol02.pdf.
You need to follow this naming convention if we are to make sense of all the files.