Logo image
Mutation rates in mammalian genomes
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Mutation rates in mammalian genomes

S Kumar and Sankar Subramanian
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol.99(2), pp.803-808
2002
url
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.022629899View
Published Version

Abstract

neutral evolution substitution pattern disparity index generation length molecular clock
Knowledge of the rate of point mutation is of fundamental importance, because mutations are a vital source of genetic novelty and a significant cause of human diseases. Currently, mutation rate is thought to vary many fold among genes within a genome and among lineages in mammals. We have conducted a computational analysis of 5,669 genes (17,208 sequences) from species representing major groups of placental mammals to characterize the extent of mutation rate differences among genes in a genome and among diverse mammalian lineages. We find that mutation rate is approximately constant per year and largely similar among genes. Similarity of mutation rates among lineages with vastly different generation lengths and physiological attributes points to a much greater contribution of replication-independent mutational processes to the overall mutation rate. Our results suggest that the average mammalian genome mutation rate is 2.2 × 10-9 per base pair per year, which provides further opportunities for estimating species and population divergence times by using molecular clocks.

Details

InCites Highlights

These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output

Web Of Science research areas
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#15 Life on Land

Source: InCites

Logo image