ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2002
Natural radioactivity and human mitochondrial DNA mutations.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 113 citations in OpenAlex.
- Review
- Detection of germline variants in human population chronically exposed to high level natural background radiation in Kerala coast.Genes and environment : the official journal of the Japanese Environmental Mutagen Society · 2026Article
- The maternal U1 haplogroup in the Koraga tribe as a correlate of their North Dravidian linguistic affinity.Frontiers in genetics · 2023Article
- Article
- Article
- The Likelihood of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes and Genetic Disease (Transgenerational Effects) from Exposure to Radioactive Fallout from the 1945 Trinity Atomic Bomb Test.Health physics · 2020Article
- Reducing the ionizing radiation background does not significantly affect the evolution of Escherichia coli populations over 500 generations.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Solar and terrestrial radiations explain continental-scale variation in bird pigmentation.Oecologia · 2018Article
- Elevated mitochondrial genome variation after 50 generations of radiation exposure in a wild rodent.Evolutionary applications · 2017Article
- Radioecological impacts of tin mining.Ambio · 2015Article
- Mitochondrial DNA heteroplasmy in the emerging field of massively parallel sequencing.Forensic science international. Genetics · 2015Review
- Elevated germline mutation rate in teenage fathers.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2015Article
- Accumulation of mtDNA variations in human single CD34+ cells from maternally related individuals: effects of aging and family genetic background.Stem cell research · 2013Article
- From next-generation sequencing alignments to accurate comparison and validation of single-nucleotide variants: the pibase software.Nucleic acids research · 2013Article
- Study of stillbirth and major congenital anomaly among newborns in the high-level natural radiation areas of Kerala, India.Journal of community genetics · 2013Article
- Sequencing and analysis of a South Asian-Indian personal genome.BMC genomics · 2012Article
- Preconception exposure to mutagens: medical and other exposures to radiation and chemicals.Journal of community genetics · 2012Article
- The use of next generation sequencing technology to study the effect of radiation therapy on mitochondrial DNA mutation.Mutation research · 2012Article
- Radionuclides and radiation indices of high background radiation area in Chavara-Neendakara placer deposits (Kerala, India).PloS one · 2012Article
- Evolutionary toxicology: contaminant-induced genetic mutations in mosquitofish from Sumgayit, Azerbaijan.Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2011Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Radioactivity is known to induce tumors, chromosome lesions, and minisatellite length mutations, but its effects on the DNA sequence have not previously been studied. A coastal peninsula in Kerala (India) contains the world's highest level of natural radioactivity in a densely populated area, offering an opportunity to characterize radiation-associated DNA mutations. We sampled 248 pedigrees (988 individuals) in the high-radiation peninsula and in nearby low-radiation islands as a control population. We sequenced their mtDNA, and found that the pedigrees living in the high-radiation area have significantly (P < 0.01) increased germ-line point mutations between mothers and their offspring. In each mutation case, we confirmed maternity by autosomal profiling. Strikingly, the radioactive conditions accelerate mutations at nucleotide positions that have been evolutionary hot spots for at least 60,000 years.
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