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Cited by 524

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Strong Purifying Selection in Transmission of Mammalian Mitochondrial DNA

Open access
Stewart, James Bruce, Freyer, Christoph, Elson, Joanna L, Wredenberg, Anna, Cansu, Zekiye, Trifunovic, Aleksandra, Larsson, Nils-Göran·2008·PLoS Biology

Abstract

There is an intense debate concerning whether selection or demographics has been most important in shaping the sequence variation observed in modern human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Purifying selection is thought to be important in shaping mtDNA sequence evolution, but the strength of this selection has been debated, mainly due to the threshold effect of pathogenic mtDNA mutations and an observed excess of new mtDNA mutations in human population data. We experimentally addressed this issue by studying the maternal transmission of random mtDNA mutations in mtDNA mutator mice expressing a proofreading-deficient mitochondrial DNA polymerase. We report a rapid and strong elimination of nonsynonymous changes in protein-coding genes; the hallmark of purifying selection. There are striking similarities between the mutational patterns in our experimental mouse system and human mtDNA polymorphisms. These data show strong purifying selection against mutations within mtDNA protein-coding genes. To our knowledge, our study presents the first direct experimental observations of the fate of random mtDNA mutations in the mammalian germ line and demonstrates the importance of purifying selection in shaping mitochondrial sequence diversity.

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Metadata

Authors
Stewart, J. B., Freyer, C., Elson, J. L., Wredenberg, A., Cansu, Z., Trifunovic, A., & Larsson, N.-G.
Venue
PLoS Biology
Published
2008-01-29
Volume
6
Issue
1
Pages
e10
ISSN
  • 1544-9173 (ISSN-L)
  • 1545-7885
OpenAlex
W2094832206
Cited by
524
References
3
FWCI
20.57
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
gold

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Strong Purifying Selection in Transmission of Mammalian Mitochondrial DNA. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060010
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Stewart, J. B., Freyer, C., Elson, J. L., Wredenberg, A., Cansu, Z., Trifunovic, A., & Larsson, N.-G. (2008). Strong Purifying Selection in Transmission of Mammalian Mitochondrial DNA. PLoS Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060010

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