Estimate of the spontaneous mutation rate in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

ABSTRACT: The nature of spontaneous mutations, including their rate, distribution across the genome, and fitness consequences, is of central importance to biology. However, the low rate of mutation has made it difficult to study spontaneous mutagenesis, and few studies have directly addressed these questions. Here, we present a direct estimate of the mutation rate and a description of the properties of new spontaneous mutations in the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We conducted a mutation accumulation experiment for ∼350 generations followed by whole-genome resequencing of two replicate lines. Our analysis identified a total of 14 mutations, including 5 short indels and 9 single base mutations, and no evidence of larger structural mutations. From this, we estimate a total mutation

SUBMITTER: Ness RW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3512149 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature