The Effects of De Novo Mutation on Gene Expression and the Consequences for Fitness in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Mutation is the ultimate source of genetic variation, the bedrock of evolution. Yet, predicting the consequences of new mutations remains a challenge in biology. Gene expression provides a potential link between a genotype and its phenotype.

Rates and spectra of de novo structural mutations in .

Genetic variation originates from several types of spontaneous mutation, including single-nucleotide substitutions, short insertions and deletions (indels), and larger structural changes. Structural mutations (SMs) drive genome evolution and are thought to play major roles in evolutionary adaptation, speciation, and genetic disease, including cancers. Sequencing of mutation accumulation (MA) lines has provided estimates of rates and spectra of single-nucleotide and indel mutations in many species, yet the rate of new SMs is largely unknown.