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MBE Advance Access published online on October 20, 2004
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msi025
Molecular Biology and Evolution © Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 2004; all rights reserved
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Accepted October 14, 2004

Research Article

How Strong is the Mutagenicity of Recombination in Mammals?

Shiao-Wei Huang 1, Robert Friedman 2, Ning Yu 3, Alex Yu 4, and Wen-Hsiung Li 3*

1 Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, 1101 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637; Institute of Zoology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan
2 Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, 1101 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637; Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208
3 Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, 1101 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
4 Institute of Zoology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Wen-Hsiung Li, E-mail: whli{at}uchicago.edu


  Abstract

It is commonly believed that a high recombination rate such as that in a pseudoautosomal region (PAR) greatly increases the mutation rate because a 170-fold increase was estimated for the mouse PAR region. However, sequencing PAR- and non-PAR introns of the Fxy gene in 4 Mus taxa, we found an increase of only 2 to 5-fold. Further, analyses of sequence data from human and orangutan PAR and X-linked regions and from autosomal regions showed a weak effect of recombination on mutation rate (a slope of < 0.2% per cM/Mb), though a much stronger effect on GC content (1 - 2% per cM/Mb). Since typical recombination rates in mammals are much lower than those in PARs, the mutagenicity of recombination is weak or, at best, moderate, though its effect on GC% is much stronger. In addition, contrary to a previous study, we found no Fxy duplicate in Mus spretus.

Keywords: pseudoautosomal region; recombination rate; mutation rate; nucleotide substitution.
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