Lessons in complexity from yeast

摘要

Ever since the modern understanding of evolution and genetics in terms of natural selection and Mendelian inheritance was formulated, generations of scientists have struggled to explain the genetic bases and evolutionary significance of the remarkable variation among individuals, which is observed in many species. Despite considerable progress in finding the main genes that determine genetically simple traits, genetic variants of individually small effect that influence the so-called complex traits - which include height, weight and disorders such as neuropsychiatric diseases and cancers - have proved elusive. On page 1039 of this issue, Ehrenreich et al. report a method in yeast that offers great statistical power for identifying multiple genomic regions that contribute to complex traits. Their work affords significant hope that similar genomic studies will be possible in many other species.