Genetic instability of C. elegans comes naturally.
There have been many attempts to measure the genome-wide mutation rate for spontaneous mutations, using measurements of traits in inbred lines in which mutations have accumulated. However, these are likely to miss many small-effect mutations that are important for evolutionary processes. Recently, the genome-wide spontaneous mutation rate in inbred lines of Caenorhabditis elegans was estimated, using DNA sequencing. The results imply that the mutation rate is surprisingly high, and that insertion-deletion mutations are unexpectedly common. Phenotypic assays of the same lines detected only a small proportion of mutations that were predicted to have evolutionarily significant fitness effects.
Keightley
Peter D
PD
Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, Scotland, UK.
Charlesworth
Brian
B
D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics*; D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism; D005828:Genetics, Population; D016678:Genome; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation; D010641:Phenotype; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods
D004247:DNA