Genome size is strongly correlated with mutation rate across species
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Evidence regarding the correlation between genome size and mutation rate is mixed; a comprehensive eukaryotic meta-analysis and a reference text report that mutation rates increase with larger genome sizes, whereas research on microbes observes an inverse proportionality between base-pair mutation rates and genome size.
Mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, and over the last ten years the ready availability of whole-genome sequencing has permitted direct estimation of mutation rate for many non-model species across the tree of life. In this meta-analysis we make a comprehensive search of the literature for mutation rate estimates in eukaryotes, identifying 140 mutation accumulation (MA) and parent-offspring (PO) sequencing studies covering 134 species. Based on these data, we revisit differences in single nucleotide mutation (SNM) rate between different phylogenetic lineages and update the known relationships between mutation rate and generation time, genome size, and nucleotide diversity—while accounting for phylogenetic non-independence. We do not find a significant difference between MA and PO in estimated mutation rates, but we confirm that mammal and plant lineages have higher mutation rates than arthropods, and that unicellular eukaryotes have the lowest mutation rates. We find that mutation rates are higher in species with longer generation times and larger genome sizes, even when accounting for phylogenetic relationships. Moreover, although nucleotide diversity is positively correlated with mutation rate, the gradient of the relationship is significantly less than one (on a logarithmic scale), consistent with higher mutation rates in populations with smaller effective size. For the 29 species for which data are available, we find that indel mutation rates are positively correlated with nucleotide mutation rates, and that short deletions are generally more common than short insertions. Nevertheless, despite recent progress, no estimates of either SNM or indel mutation rates are available for the majority of deeply-branching eukaryotic lineages—or even for most animal phyla. Even among charismatic megafauna, experimental mutation rate estimates remain unknown for amphibia and scarce for reptiles and fish. Lay Summary Over the past decade, the sequencing revolution has led to an ever-increasing number of mutation-rate estimates from mutation accumulation or parent-offspring sequencing studies in eukaryotes. However, studies rarely quantify to what extent the mutation rate varies among these species. Also, despite strong predictions as to how mutation rate should vary with (e.g.) generation time, there have been few recent or wide-ranging analyses of such predictors while accounting for the inherent similarity between closely-related species. Of particular note, there has been surprisingly little effort to robustly test the ‘drift barrier’ hypothesis that mutation rates should decrease with increasing effective population size. In this study, we used a comprehensive literature search to identify all the available experimental estimates of mutation rate in eukaryotes and subject them to phylogenetic mixed-model analyses. We find that per-nucleotide per-generation mutation rates differ by orders of magnitude among species: plants and mammals tend to have higher mutation rates than arthropods, and unicellular organisms have the lowest mutation rates. Our analysis also shows that mutation rates increase significantly with increasing generation time and genome size, and nucleotide diversity increases with mutation rate with a gradient less than one—as predicted by the drift-barrier hypothesis.
A constant rate of spontaneous mutation in DNA-based microbes. In terms of evolution and fitness, the most significant spontaneous mutation rate is likely to be that for the entire genome (or its nonfrivolous fraction). Information is now available to calculate this rate for several DNA-based haploid microbes, including bacteriophages with single- or double-stranded DNA, a bacterium, a yeast, and a filamentous fungus. Their genome sizes vary by approximately 6500-fold. Their average mutation rates per base pair vary by approximately 16,000-fold, whereas their mutation rates per genome vary by only approximately 2.5-fold, apparently randomly, around a mean value of 0.0033 per DNA replication. The average mutation rate per base pair is inversely proportional to genome size. Therefore, a nearly invariant microbial mutation rate appears to have evolved. Because this rate is uniform in such diverse organisms, it is likely to be determined by deep general forces, perhaps by a balance between the usually deleterious effects of mutation and the physiological costs of further reducing mutation rates.
The evolutionary processes that drive variation in genome size across the tree of life remain unresolved. Effective population size (Ne) is thought to play an important role in shaping genome size [1-3]-a key example being the reduced genomes of insect endosymbionts, which undergo population bottlenecks during transmission [4]. However, the existence of reduced genomes in marine and terrestrial prokaryote species with large Ne indicate that genome reduction is influenced by multiple processes [3]. One candidate process is enhanced mutation rate, which can increase adaptive capacity but can also promote gene loss. To investigate evolutionary forces associated with prokaryotic genome reduction, we performed molecular evolutionary and phylogenomic analyses of nine lineages from five bacterial and archaeal phyla. We found that gene-loss rate strongly correlated with synonymous substitution rate (a proxy for mutation rate) in seven of the nine lineages. However, gene-loss rate showed weak or no correlation with the ratio of nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution rate (dN/dS). These results indicate that genome reduction is largely associated with increased mutation rate, while the association between gene loss and changes in Ne is less well defined. Lineages with relatively high dS and dN, as well as smaller genomes, lacked multiple DNA repair genes, providing a proximate cause for increased mutation rates. Our findings suggest that similar mechanisms drive genome reduction in both intracellular and free-living prokaryotes, with implications for developing a comprehensive theory of prokaryote genome size evolution.
The evolutionary processes that drive variation in genome size across the tree of life remain unresolved. Effective population size (Ne) is thought to play an important role in shaping genome size [1, 2, 3]—a key example being the reduced genomes of insect endosymbionts, which undergo population bottlenecks during transmission [4]. However, the existence of reduced genomes in marine and terrestrial prokaryote species with large Ne indicate that genome reduction is influenced by multiple processes [3]. One candidate process is enhanced mutation rate, which can increase adaptive capacity but can also promote gene loss. To investigate evolutionary forces associated with prokaryotic genome reduction, we performed molecular evolutionary and phylogenomic analyses of nine lineages from five bacterial and archaeal phyla. We found that gene-loss rate strongly correlated with synonymous substitution rate (a proxy for mutation rate) in seven of the nine lineages. However, gene-loss rate showed weak or no correlation with the ratio of nonsynonymous/synonymous substitution rate (dN/dS). These results indicate that genome reduction is largely associated with increased mutation rate, while the association between gene loss and changes in Ne is less well defined. Lineages with relatively high dS and dN, as well as smaller genomes, lacked multiple DNA repair genes, providing a proximate cause for increased mutation rates. Our findings suggest that similar mechanisms drive genome reduction in
the spontaneous mutation rate in fruit flies. He later discov- ered that the mutation rate could vary by … 1. Per Generation Mutation Rate Estimates for a Range of Organisms Mutation rate Genomic Organism … and thereafter the genomic mutation rate rises with increasing genome size. This suggests that the per
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