title: Strand symmetry of mutation rates in the beta-globin region.
abstract: It has been suggested that there may be inequalities in the types of substitution on the two DNA strands (in particular, in the frequencies of transversions from R to Y and from Y to R) due to a higher error rate on the lagging than the leading strand during replication. Reexamination of 11 kb of the beta-globin region sequenced in six primates fails to confirm this suggestion. Examination of the 73-kb beta-globin region sequenced in humans shows that the frequency of pyrimidines in different parts of this region is more variable than expected in a random sequence, but the pattern is more consistent with nonrandomness generated by DNA turnover mechanisms than with strand asymmetry due to a higher error rate on the lagging strand.
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bulmer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001482:Base Composition; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D004261:DNA Replication; D005914:Globins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation; D011323:Primates
chemical_list: D005914:Globins