ArticleBioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology2015
The evolution of sex: A new hypothesis based on mitochondrial mutational erosion: Mitochondrial mutational erosion in ancestral eukaryotes would favor the evolution of sex, harnessing nuclear recombination to optimize compensatory nuclear coadaptation.
Article in BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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30 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Use of dN/dS Ratios to Investigate Types of Selection in Related Sexual and Asexual Lineages.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Review
- Codon usage bias and selective constraints in Gentianales mitogenomes.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Repeated Independent Formation of Triploid Lineages Contributes to Clonal Diversity in Heteronotia binoei Parthenogens.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Abundant Recurrent Mitochondrial Mutations and Widespread Mitonuclear Epistasis in Caenorhabditis elegans.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Assembling genomes of non-model plants: A case study with evolutionary insights from Ranunculus (Ranunculaceae).The Plant journal : for cell and molecular biology · 2025Article
- Effects of mating system and adaptedness on the evolution of fitness and mtDNA copy number in mitonuclear mismatched C. elegans.Heredity · 2025Article
- Apomixis and the paradox of sex in plants.Annals of botany · 2024Review
- Selectively advantageous instability in biotic and pre-biotic systems and implications for evolution and aging.Frontiers in aging · 2024Review
- Evolutionary codependency: insights into the mitonuclear interaction landscape from experimental and wild Caenorhabditis nematodes.Current opinion in genetics & development · 2023Review
- Mitochondria as a target and central hub of energy division during cold stress in insects.Frontiers in zoology · 2022Review
- Mitonuclear Mismatch is Associated With Increased Male Frequency, Outcrossing, and Male Sperm Size in Experimentally-EvolvedFrontiers in genetics · 2022Article
- Article
- Mitochondrial DNA Replacement Techniques to Prevent Human Mitochondrial Diseases.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- High and Highly Variable Spontaneous Mutation Rates in Daphnia.Molecular biology and evolution · 2020Article
- Powerhouses in the cold: mitochondrial function during thermal acclimation in montane mayflies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- The conflict within: origin, proliferation and persistence of a spontaneously arising selfish mitochondrial genome.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Selfish Mitonuclear Conflict.Current biology : CB · 2019Review
- Assessing the fitness consequences of mitonuclear interactions in natural populations.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2019Article
- Sex and Mitonuclear Adaptation in ExperimentalGenetics · 2019Article
- How oxygen gave rise to eukaryotic sex.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Review
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Abstract
The evolution of sex in eukaryotes represents a paradox, given the "twofold" fitness cost it incurs. We hypothesize that the mutational dynamics of the mitochondrial genome would have favored the evolution of sexual reproduction. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) exhibits a high-mutation rate across most eukaryote taxa, and several lines of evidence suggest that this high rate is an ancestral character. This seems inexplicable given that mtDNA-encoded genes underlie the expression of life's most salient functions, including energy conversion. We propose that negative metabolic effects linked to mitochondrial mutation accumulation would have invoked selection for sexual recombination between divergent host nuclear genomes in early eukaryote lineages. This would provide a mechanism by which recombinant host genotypes could be rapidly shuffled and screened for the presence of compensatory modifiers that offset mtDNA-induced harm. Under this hypothesis, recombination provides the genetic variation necessary for compensatory nuclear coadaptation to keep pace with mitochondrial mutation accumulation.
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