ArticlePLoS genetics2009
Avoiding dangerous missense: thermophiles display especially low mutation rates.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 92 citations in OpenAlex.
- A meta-analysis of the activity, stability, and mutational characteristics of temperature-adapted enzymes.Bioscience reports · 2021Pooled it
- Hsp70 diversification and repurposing across the tree of life: Lessons from the evolutionary and mechanistic trajectory of the Hsp70-Hsp110 chaperone system.The FEBS journal · 2026Review
- Genomic traits associated with copiotrophy decouple from maximum growth rate predictions along temperature gradients.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Repeatability of evolution and genomic predictions of temperature adaptation in seed beetles.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Distribution of specific prokaryotic immune systems correlates with host optimal growth temperature.NAR genomics and bioinformatics · 2024Article
- Coevolution of longevity and female germline maintenance.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Genomic estimates of mutation and substitution rates contradict the evolutionary speed hypothesis of the latitudinal diversity gradient.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Genome Dynamics and Temperature Adaptation During Experimental Evolution of Obligate Intracellular Bacteria.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Postglacial adaptations enabled colonization and quasi-clonal dispersal of ammonia-oxidizing archaea in modern European large lakes.Science advances · 2023Article
- Genomic attributes of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic bacteria and archaea.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2022Review
- Article
- Global phylogenomic novelty of the Cas1 gene from hot spring microbial communities.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- The biology of thermoacidophilic archaea from the order Sulfolobales.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2021Article
- The Mutational Robustness of the Genetic Code and Codon Usage in Environmental Context: A Non-Extremophilic Preference?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Unexpectedly high mutation rate of a deep-sea hyperthermophilic anaerobic archaeon.The ISME journal · 2021Article
- Phylogenetic analysis of mutational robustness based on codon usage supports that the standard genetic code does not prefer extreme environments.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The Molecular Determinants of Thermoadaptation: Methanococcales as a Case Study.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Elevated temperature increases genome-wide selection on de novo mutations.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Evolutionary Rates of Bumblebee Genomes Are Faster at Lower Elevations.Molecular biology and evolution · 2019Article
- Genome size evolution in the Archaea.Emerging topics in life sciences · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Rates of spontaneous mutation have been estimated under optimal growth conditions for a variety of DNA-based microbes, including viruses, bacteria, and eukaryotes. When expressed as genomic mutation rates, most of the values were in the vicinity of 0.003-0.004 with a range of less than two-fold. Because the genome sizes varied by roughly 10(4)-fold, the mutation rates per average base pair varied inversely by a similar factor. Even though the commonality of the observed genomic rates remains unexplained, it implies that mutation rates in unstressed microbes reach values that can be finely tuned by evolution. An insight originating in the 1920s and maturing in the 1960s proposed that the genomic mutation rate would reflect a balance between the deleterious effect of the average mutation and the cost of further reducing the mutation rate. If this view is correct, then increasing the deleterious impact of the average mutation should be countered by reducing the genomic mutation rate. It is a common observation that many neutral or nearly neutral mutations become strongly deleterious at higher temperatures, in which case they are called temperature-sensitive mutations. Recently, the kinds and rates of spontaneous mutations were described for two microbial thermophiles, a bacterium and an archaeon. Using an updated method to extrapolate from mutation-reporter genes to whole genomes reveals that the rate of base substitutions is substantially lower in these two thermophiles than in mesophiles. This result provides the first experimental support for the concept of an evolved balance between the total genomic impact of mutations and the cost of further reducing the basal mutation rate.
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