Quantitative and sensitive sequencing of somatic mutations induced by a maize transposon.

ABSTRACT: Cells accumulate mutations throughout development, contributing to cancer, aging, and evolution. Quantitative data on the abundance of de novo mutations within plants or animals are limited, as new mutations are often rare within a tissue and fall below the limits of current sequencing depths and error rates. Here, we show that mutations induced by the maize Mutator (Mu) transposon can be reliably quantified down to a detection limit of 1 part in 16,000. We measured the abundance of millions of de novo Mu insertions across four tissue types. Within a tissue, the distribution of de novo Mu allele frequencies was highly reproducible between plants, showing that, despite the stochastic nature of mutation, repeated statistical patterns of mutation abundance emerge. In cont

SUBMITTER: Scherer J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11785109 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature