ArticleGenome biology and evolution2011
The lower bound to the evolution of mutation rates.
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 106 papers.
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Who cites it
106 citing papers in PubMed, 180 citations in OpenAlex.
- Inheritance and selection of the mitochondrial genome.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- The rate and spectrum of germline mutations in chicken from a commercial pedigree line.Genetics, selection, evolution : GSE · 2026Article
- Dynamics of mutators of arbitrary dominance in humans.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- AScience advances · 2026Article
- Evolution of the highest fidelity DNA replication systems.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- What sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species?PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Evolution of the rate, molecular spectrum, and fitness effects of mutation under minimal selection in Caenorhabditis elegans.Genetics · 2026Article
- Evolution of the rate, molecular spectrum, and fitness effects of mutation under minimal selection inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The mutation landscape of Daphnia obtusa reveals evolutionary forces shaping genome stability.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- What sets the mutation rate of a cell type in an animal species?bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Lifespan-extending downregulation of insulin signalling reduces germline mutation load.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The role of environmental stress in promoting mutators through evolutionary rescue: quantitative predictions.Genetics · 2025Article
- Contrasting mutation patterns in haploid and diploid cells from two yeast species.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The mutation landscape ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- How Did Evolution Halve Genome Size During an Oceanic Island Colonization?Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- A narrow range of transcript-error rates across the Tree of Life.Science advances · 2025Article
- Article
- The theory of massively repeated evolution and full identifications of cancer-driving nucleotides (CDNs).eLife · 2024Article
- Direct and indirect selection in a proofreading polymerase.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Variation in the Spectrum of New Mutations among Inbred Strains of Mice.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
46 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
Despite substantial attention from theoreticians, the evolutionary mechanisms that drive intra- and interspecific variation in the mutation rate remain unclear. It has often been argued that mutation rates associated with the major replicative polymerases have been driven down to their physiological limits, defined as the point at which further enhancement in replication fidelity incurs a cost in terms of reproductive output, but no evidence in support of this argument has emerged for cellular organisms. Here, it is suggested that the lower barrier to mutation rate evolution may ultimately be defined not by molecular limitations but by the power of random genetic drift. As the mutation rate is reduced to a very low level, a point will eventually be reached at which the small advantage of any further reduction is overwhelmed by the power of drift. This hypothesis is consistent with a number of observations, including the inverse relationship between the per-site mutation rate and genome size in microbes, the negative scaling between the per-site mutation rate and effective population size in eukaryotes, and the elevated error rates associated with less frequently deployed polymerases and repair pathways.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.