Figure 3.

Potential use of experimental fitness maps to interpret polymorphisms observed in natural populations. The top panel illustrates potential DNA sequences from 10 individuals in a population. In these 10 theoretical sequences there are three polymorphisms that cause amino acid changes in the encoded protein. Interpreting the potential impact of polymorphism on fitness and health is a major challenge in the genomic era. Fitness maps from mutational scanning as theoretically illustrated in the bottom panel could be a powerful approach to interpret the impacts of polymorphisms in humans and other natural populations.