Deleterious mutation accumulation in asexual Timema stick insects.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_675D017149AD
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Deleterious mutation accumulation in asexual Timema stick insects.
Journal
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Author(s)
Henry L., Schwander T., Crespi B.J.
ISSN
1537-1719 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0737-4038
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2012
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
29
Number
1
Pages
401-408
Language
english
Abstract
Sexual reproduction is extremely widespread in spite of its presumed costs relative to asexual reproduction, indicating that it must provide significant advantages. One postulated benefit of sex and recombination is that they facilitate the purging of mildly deleterious mutations, which would accumulate in asexual lineages and contribute to their short evolutionary life span. To test this prediction, we estimated the accumulation rate of coding (nonsynonymous) mutations, which are expected to be deleterious, in parts of one mitochondrial (COI) and two nuclear (Actin and Hsp70) genes in six independently derived asexual lineages and related sexual species of Timema stick insects. We found signatures of increased coding mutation accumulation in all six asexual Timema and for each of the three analyzed genes, with 3.6- to 13.4-fold higher rates in the asexuals as compared with the sexuals. In addition, because coding mutations in the asexuals often resulted in considerable hydrophobicity changes at the concerned amino acid positions, coding mutations in the asexuals are likely associated with more strongly deleterious effects than in the sexuals. Our results demonstrate that deleterious mutation accumulation can differentially affect sexual and asexual lineages and support the idea that deleterious mutation accumulation plays an important role in limiting the long-term persistence of all-female lineages.
Keywords
Animals, Codon, Female, Genes, Insect, Genetics, Population, Insects/genetics, Mutation, Parthenogenesis/genetics, Phylogeny
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
04/02/2013 10:22
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:22
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