ArticlePloS one2012
Whole genome sequencing of mutation accumulation lines reveals a low mutation rate in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.
Article in PloS one, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mutational biases and selection in mitochondrial genomes: insights from a comparative analysis of natural and laboratory populations of Caenorhabditis elegans.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- Flipping the switch on some of the slowest mutating genomes: Direct measurements of plant mitochondrial and plastid mutation rates in msh1 mutants.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Flipping the switch on some of the slowest mutating genomes: Direct measurements of plant mitochondrial and plastid mutation rates inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Gene birth in a model of non-genic adaptation.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Low Spontaneous Mutation Rate in Complex Multicellular Eukaryotes with a Haploid-Diploid Life Cycle.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Very Low Rates of Spontaneous Gene Deletions and Gene Duplications in Dictyostelium discoideum.Journal of molecular evolution · 2023Article
- Stage-specific transposon activity in the life cycle of the fairy-ring mushroomProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Article
- Insights on Microsatellite Characteristics, Evolution, and Function From the Social AmoebaFrontiers in neuroscience · 2022Review
- Inferring Adaptive Codon Preference to Understand Sources of Selection Shaping Codon Usage Bias.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Stability across the Whole Nuclear Genome in the Presence and Absence of DNA Mismatch Repair.Cells · 2021Review
- Review
- Low Base-Substitution Mutation Rate but High Rate of Slippage Mutations in the Sequence Repeat-Rich Genome ofG3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2020Article
- Article
- First Estimation of the Spontaneous Mutation Rate in Diatoms.Genome biology and evolution · 2019Article
- Old Trade, New Tricks: Insights into the Spontaneous Mutation Process from the Partnering of Classical Mutation Accumulation Experiments with High-Throughput Genomic Approaches.Genome biology and evolution · 2019Review
- A Single Transcript CRISPR-Cas9 System for Multiplex Genome Editing in Plants.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2019Article
- Limited Mutation-Rate Variation Within theG3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2018Article
- Article
- Adaptive Evolution under Extreme Genetic Drift in Oxidatively Stressed Caenorhabditis elegans.Genome biology and evolution · 2017Article
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8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Spontaneous mutations play a central role in evolution. Despite their importance, mutation rates are some of the most elusive parameters to measure in evolutionary biology. The combination of mutation accumulation (MA) experiments and whole-genome sequencing now makes it possible to estimate mutation rates by directly observing new mutations at the molecular level across the whole genome. We performed an MA experiment with the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum and sequenced the genomes of three randomly chosen lines using high-throughput sequencing to estimate the spontaneous mutation rate in this model organism. The mitochondrial mutation rate of 6.76×10(-9), with a Poisson confidence interval of 4.1×10(-9) - 9.5×10(-9), per nucleotide per generation is slightly lower than estimates for other taxa. The mutation rate estimate for the nuclear DNA of 2.9×10(-11), with a Poisson confidence interval ranging from 7.4×10(-13) to 1.6×10(-10), is the lowest reported for any eukaryote. These results are consistent with low microsatellite mutation rates previously observed in D. discoideum and low levels of genetic variation observed in wild D. discoideum populations. In addition, D. discoideum has been shown to be quite resistant to DNA damage, which suggests an efficient DNA-repair mechanism that could be an adaptation to life in soil and frequent exposure to intracellular and extracellular mutagenic compounds. The social aspect of the life cycle of D. discoideum and a large portion of the genome under relaxed selection during vegetative growth could also select for a low mutation rate. This hypothesis is supported by a significantly lower mutation rate per cell division in multicellular eukaryotes compared with unicellular eukaryotes.
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