Rate of de novo mutations in the three-spined stickleback

Chaowei Zhang; Kerry Reid; Mikkel Heide Schierup; Hongbo Wang; Ulrika Candolin; Juha Merilä

doi:10.1038/s41437-025-00767-9

Rate of de novo mutations in the three-spined stickleback

Chaowei Zhang^*, Kerry Reid, Mikkel Heide Schierup, Hongbo Wang, Ulrika Candolin, Juha Merilä^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics - Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC)

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

As a fundamentally important genetic parameter and evolutionary force, germline mutation rates have many applications in evolutionary biology. However, accurate estimates of de novo mutation (DNM) rates are still relatively scarce, even for extensively studied evolutionary biology models. We estimated DNM rates for the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), the ‘supermodel’ of ecology and evolutionary biology. Using a large number of family trios sequenced to 45x coverage, we identified 115 unique mutations genome-wide and estimated the DNM rate at µ = 5.11 × 10⁻⁹/bp/gen without any detectable sex bias. The localised DNM rate was found to be positively correlated with the recombination rate, supporting the notion that recombination is a mutagenic process. Correlations between µ and genomic characteristics of studied species and the related nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) revealed a high degree of similarity, suggesting that despite 17.5 million years of independent evolution, the mutational processes in the two species appear to have been conserved.

Original language	English
Journal	Heredity
ISSN	0018-067X
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-025-00767-9
Publication status	E-pub / Early view - 2025

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title = "Rate of de novo mutations in the three-spined stickleback",

abstract = "As a fundamentally important genetic parameter and evolutionary force, germline mutation rates have many applications in evolutionary biology. However, accurate estimates of de novo mutation (DNM) rates are still relatively scarce, even for extensively studied evolutionary biology models. We estimated DNM rates for the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), the {\textquoteleft}supermodel{\textquoteright} of ecology and evolutionary biology. Using a large number of family trios sequenced to 45x coverage, we identified 115 unique mutations genome-wide and estimated the DNM rate at µ = 5.11 × 10−9/bp/gen without any detectable sex bias. The localised DNM rate was found to be positively correlated with the recombination rate, supporting the notion that recombination is a mutagenic process. Correlations between µ and genomic characteristics of studied species and the related nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) revealed a high degree of similarity, suggesting that despite 17.5 million years of independent evolution, the mutational processes in the two species appear to have been conserved.",

author = "Chaowei Zhang and Kerry Reid and Schierup, {Mikkel Heide} and Hongbo Wang and Ulrika Candolin and Juha Meril{\"a}",

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T1 - Rate of de novo mutations in the three-spined stickleback

AU - Zhang, Chaowei

AU - Reid, Kerry

AU - Schierup, Mikkel Heide

AU - Wang, Hongbo

AU - Candolin, Ulrika

AU - Merilä, Juha

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - As a fundamentally important genetic parameter and evolutionary force, germline mutation rates have many applications in evolutionary biology. However, accurate estimates of de novo mutation (DNM) rates are still relatively scarce, even for extensively studied evolutionary biology models. We estimated DNM rates for the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), the ‘supermodel’ of ecology and evolutionary biology. Using a large number of family trios sequenced to 45x coverage, we identified 115 unique mutations genome-wide and estimated the DNM rate at µ = 5.11 × 10−9/bp/gen without any detectable sex bias. The localised DNM rate was found to be positively correlated with the recombination rate, supporting the notion that recombination is a mutagenic process. Correlations between µ and genomic characteristics of studied species and the related nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) revealed a high degree of similarity, suggesting that despite 17.5 million years of independent evolution, the mutational processes in the two species appear to have been conserved.

AB - As a fundamentally important genetic parameter and evolutionary force, germline mutation rates have many applications in evolutionary biology. However, accurate estimates of de novo mutation (DNM) rates are still relatively scarce, even for extensively studied evolutionary biology models. We estimated DNM rates for the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), the ‘supermodel’ of ecology and evolutionary biology. Using a large number of family trios sequenced to 45x coverage, we identified 115 unique mutations genome-wide and estimated the DNM rate at µ = 5.11 × 10−9/bp/gen without any detectable sex bias. The localised DNM rate was found to be positively correlated with the recombination rate, supporting the notion that recombination is a mutagenic process. Correlations between µ and genomic characteristics of studied species and the related nine-spined stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) revealed a high degree of similarity, suggesting that despite 17.5 million years of independent evolution, the mutational processes in the two species appear to have been conserved.

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SN - 0018-067X

JO - Heredity

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Rate of de novo mutations in the three-spined stickleback

Abstract

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