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Originally published as Genetics Published Articles Ahead of Print on October 18, 2007.

Genetics, Vol. 177, 1499-1507, November 2007, Copyright © 2007
doi:10.1534/genetics.107.076067

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An Unusually Low Microsatellite Mutation Rate in Dictyostelium discoideum, an Organism With Unusually Abundant Microsatellites

Ryan McConnell, Sara Middlemist, Clea Scala, Joan E. Strassmann and David C. Queller1

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005

1 Corresponding author: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, MS-170, Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston, TX 77005.
E-mail: queller{at}rice.edu

The genome of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum is known to have a very high density of microsatellite repeats, including thousands of triplet microsatellite repeats in coding regions that apparently code for long runs of single amino acids. We used a mutation accumulation study to see if unusually high microsatellite mutation rates contribute to this pattern. There was a modest bias toward mutations that increase repeat number, but because upward mutations were smaller than downward ones, this did not lead to a net average increase in size. Longer microsatellites had higher mutation rates than shorter ones, but did not show greater directional bias. The most striking finding is that the overall mutation rate is the lowest reported for microsatellites: ~1 x 10–6 for 10 dinucleotide loci and 6 x 10–6 for 52 trinucleotide loci (which were longer). High microsatellite mutation rates therefore do not explain the high incidence of microsatellites. The causal relation may in fact be reversed, with low mutation rates evolving to protect against deleterious fitness effects of mutation at the numerous microsatellites.




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A. L. Seyfert, M. E. A. Cristescu, L. Frisse, S. Schaack, W. K. Thomas, and M. Lynch
The Rate and Spectrum of Microsatellite Mutation in Caenorhabditis elegans and Daphnia pulex
Genetics, April 1, 2008; 178(4): 2113 - 2121.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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