Male‐driven Evolution

Hans Ellegren, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Published online: May 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0005303.pub2

If the number of germ-line cell divisions has an effect on the mutation rate, for example owing to replication errors, we might expect the mutation rate of the two sexes to differ. Recent estimates from human and other primates suggest that this difference corresponds to a male bias of a factor of approximately 5.

Keywords: germ line; mutation rate; sex chromosomes; male bias; polymorphism

 References
    Bohossian HB, Skaletsky H and Page DC (2000) Unexpectedly similar rates of nucleotide substitution found in male and female hominids. Nature 406: 622–625.
    Ellegren H (2000) Heterogeneous mutation processes in human microsatellite DNA sequences. Nature Genetics 24: 400–402.
    Ellegren H (2002) Human mutation – blame (mostly) men. Nature Genetics 31: 9–10.
    Haldane JBS (1947) The mutation rate of the gene for haemophilia, and its segregation rates in males and females. Annals Eugenics 13: 262–271.
    Hurst LD and Ellegren H (1998) Sex biases in the mutation rate. Trends in Genetics 14: 446–452.
    Leigh EG (1970) Natural selection and mutability. American Naturalist 104: 301–305.
    Lercher MJ, Williams EJB and Hurst LD (2001) Local similarity in evolutionary rates extends over whole chromosomes in human–rodent and mouse–rat comparisons: implications for understanding the mechanistic basis of the male mutation bias. Molecular Biology and Evolution 18: 2032–2039.
    Makova KD and Li WH (2002) Strong male-driven evolution of DNA sequences in humans and apes. Nature 416: 624–626.
    Matassi G, Sharp PM and Gautier C (1999) Chromosomal location effects on gene sequence evolution in mammals. Current Biology 12: 786–791.
    McVean GT and Hurst LD (1997) Evidence for a selectively favourable reduction in the mutation rate of the X chromosome. Nature 386: 388–392.
    Miyata T, Hayashida H, Kuma K, Mitsuyasu K and Yasunaga T (1987) Male-driven molecular evolution: a model and nucleotide sequence analysis. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 52: 863–867.
    Shimmin LC, Chang BHJ, Hewett-Emmett D and Li WH (1993a) Potential problems in estimating the male-to-female mutation rate ratio from DNA sequence data. Journal of Molecular Evolution 37: 160–166.
    Shimmin LC, Chang BHJ and Li WH (1993b) Male-driven evolution of DNA sequences. Nature 362: 745–747.
    SNP Consortium (2001) A map of human genome sequence variation containing 1.42 million single nucleotide polymorphisms. Nature 409: 928–933.
    book Vogel F and Motulsky AG (1997) Human Genetics: Problems and Approaches. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
    Xu X, Peng M and Fang Z (2000) The direction of microsatellite mutations is dependent upon allele length. Nature Genetics 24: 396–399.
 Further Reading
    Li WH, Yi S and Makova K (2002) Male-driven evolution. Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 12: 650–656.

Related Sub-Topics:

Molecular Evolution | Evolutionary Processes | Variation by Mutation and Recombination | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
Contact Editor close
Submit a note to the editor about this article by filling in the form below.

* Required Field

Article Title: Male‐driven Evolution
 
How to Cite close
Ellegren, Hans(May 2008) Male‐driven Evolution. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0005303.pub2]