The effects of de novo mutation on gene expression and the consequences for fitness in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

ABSTRACT: Mutation is the ultimate source of genetic variation, the bedrock of evolution. Yet, predicting the consequences of new mutations remains a challenge in biology. Gene expression provides a potential link between a genotype and its phenotype. But the variation in gene expression created by de novo mutation and the fitness consequences of mutational changes to expression remain relatively unexplored. Here, we investigate the effects of >2600 de novo mutations on gene expression across the transcriptome of 28 mutation accumulation lines derived from two independent wild-type genotypes of the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We observed that the amount of genetic variance in gene expression created by mutation (Vm) was similar to the variance that mutation generates in typical polygenic

SUBMITTER: Balogun EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10910851 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature