ArticlePLoS biology2020
A comparison of humans and baboons suggests germline mutation rates do not track cell divisions.
Article in PLoS biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 106 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Evolution of the highest fidelity DNA replication systems.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Census and genetic analysis of the United States marmoset population.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Characterization of de novo germline mutations suggests a strong male mutation bias in coppery titi monkeys (Plecturocebus cupreus).Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Aging alters DNA structure-induced genetic instability in mice.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- An evolutionary T119R substitution in the macaque T-cell immunoreceptor TIGIT enables proteolytic shedding and reveals clinical antibody vulnerabilities.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2026Article
- Recent Insights Into the Evolutionary Genomics of the Critically Endangered Aye-Aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis).American journal of primatology · 2025Review
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- Convergent Evolution and the Epigenome.Epigenomes · 2025Review
- Induction of postmeiotic DNA double-strand breaks by the Pnu1 endonuclease inMolecular biology of the cell · 2025Article
- Re-Evaluating the Demographic History of, and Inferring the Fine-Scale Recombination Landscape For, Wild Chinese Rhesus Macaques (Macaca mulatta).American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Determinants of de novo mutations in extended pedigrees of 43 dog breeds.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Genomic evidence for males of exceptional reproductive output (ERO) in apes and humans.National science review · 2025Article
- Rate of de novo mutations in the three-spined stickleback.Heredity · 2025Article
- Population size interacts with reproductive longevity to shape the germline mutation rate.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
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- The strength of organ, tissue, and body field effects determines the frequency of all neoplasia.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Estimates of the Mutation Rate per Year Can Explain Why the Molecular Clock Depends on Generation Time.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Germline mutation rates and fine-scale recombination parameters in zebra finch.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In humans, most germline mutations are inherited from the father. This observation has been widely interpreted as reflecting the replication errors that accrue during spermatogenesis. If so, the male bias in mutation should be substantially lower in a closely related species with similar rates of spermatogonial stem cell divisions but a shorter mean age of reproduction. To test this hypothesis, we resequenced two 3-4 generation nuclear families (totaling 29 individuals) of olive baboons (Papio anubis), who reproduce at approximately 10 years of age on average, and analyzed the data in parallel with three 3-generation human pedigrees (26 individuals). We estimated a mutation rate per generation in baboons of 0.57×10-8 per base pair, approximately half that of humans. Strikingly, however, the degree of male bias in germline mutations is approximately 4:1, similar to that of humans-indeed, a similar male bias is seen across mammals that reproduce months, years, or decades after birth. These results mirror the finding in humans that the male mutation bias is stable with parental ages and cast further doubt on the assumption that germline mutations track cell divisions. Our mutation rate estimates for baboons raise a further puzzle, suggesting a divergence time between apes and Old World monkeys of 65 million years, too old to be consistent with the fossil record; reconciling them now requires not only a slowdown of the mutation rate per generation in humans but also in baboons.
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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.