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Within a group of well-studied DNA-based microbes (phages, bacteria, and eukaryotes), genome sizes are found to vary by almost four orders of magnitude. Their rates of mutation per base pair also vary by about that much, so the net result is that their mutation rates per genome vary less than 10-fold. Why do you think this is?
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Perhaps larger genomes are more complex, integrated -- and therefore less tolerant of mutation (I’m ignoring giants formed via polyploidy etc.). Perhaps in larger genomes there are mechanisms for reducing or repairing mutations. CHIMERAS put up a very interesting post last week about “gene migration” from captured organelles to the host genome. Once there, the rate of mutation drops and so these genes are a bit like “molecular fossils” compared with organelle DNA, which has continued to mutate at the higher organelle rate. See post for more details and paper cited.
http://chimerasthebooks.blogspot.com/2012/02/migrating-genes.html
Posted by: Hollis | February 13, 2012 at 10:26 AM