Somatic maintenance impacts the evolution of mutation rate

• Published in: BMC ecology and evolution Vol. 19; no. 1; p. 172
• Main Authors: Rozhok, Andrii, DeGregori, James
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 23.08.2019; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Aging; Analysis; Animals; Asexuality; Biological Evolution; Body Size; Cancer; Cancer prevention; Cell division; Computer Simulation; DNA repair; Evolution; Evolution (Biology); Evolutionary biology; Forecasts and trends; Gene mutation; Genes; Genetic aspects; Health risks; Longevity; Models, Genetic; Monte Carlo Method; Mutation; Mutation Rate; Mutation rates; Natural selection; Negative selection; Neoplasms - genetics; Phenotype; Population; Population Density; Population number; Selection; Selection, Genetic; Somatic maintenance; Stochastic models; Stochasticity; United States; Mutation rate; Longevity; Somatic maintenance; Body size; Selection
• ISSN: 1471-2148; 1471-2148; 2730-7182
• DOI: 10.1186/s12862-019-1496-y

The evolution of multi-cellular animals has produced a conspicuous trend toward increased body size. This trend has introduced at least two novel problems: an expected elevated risk of somatic disorders, such as cancer, and declining evolvability due to generally reduced population size, lower reproduction rate and extended generation time. Low population size is widely recognized to explain the high mutation rates in animals by limiting the presumed universally negative selection acting on mutation rates. Here, we present evidence from stochastic modeling that the direction and strength of selection acting on mutation rates is highly dependent on the evolution of somatic maintenance, and thus longevity, which modulates the cost of somatic mutations. We argue that the impact of the evolution of longevity on mutation rates may have been critical in facilitating animal evolution.