Recently, it has become possible to measure the germ-line mutation rate directly in more complex, sexually reproducing organisms such as humans. In this case, the complete genomes from a family—parents and offspring—were directly sequenced, and a careful comparison revealed that approximately 70 new single-nucleotide mutations arose in the germ lines of each offspring. Normalized to the size of the human genome, the mutation rate is one nucleotide change per 108 nucleotides per human generation. This is a slight underestimate because some mutations will be lethal and will therefore be absent from progeny; however, because relatively little of the human genome carries critical information, this consideration has only a small effect on the true mutation rate. It is estimated that approximately 100 cell divisions occur in the germ line from the time of conception to the time of production of the eggs and sperm that go on to make the next generation. Thus, the human mutation rate, expressed in terms of cell divisions (instead of human generations), is approximately 1 mutation/1010 nucleotides/ cell division.
Although E. coli and humans differ greatly in their modes of reproduction and in their generation times, when the mutation rates of each are normalized to a single round of DNA replication, they are both extremely low and within a factor of three of each other. We shall see later in the chapter that the basic mechanisms that ensure these low rates of mutation have been conserved since the very early history of cells on Earth.
Low Mutation Rates Are Necessary for Life as We Know It
Since many mutations are deleterious, no species can afford to allow them to accumulate at a high rate in its germ cells. Although the observed mutation frequency is low, it is nevertheless thought to limit the number of essential proteins that any organism can depend upon to perhaps 30,000. More than this, and the probability that at least one critical component will suffer a damaging mutation becomes catastrophically high. By an extension of the same argument, a mutation frequency tenfold higher would limit an organism to about 3000 essential genes. In this case, evolution would have been limited to organisms considerably less complex than a fruit fly.
The cells of a sexually reproducing animal or plant are of two types: germ cells and somatic cells. The germ cells transmit genetic information from parent to offspring; the somatic cells form the body of the organism (Figure 5–1). We have seen that germ cells must be protected against high rates of mutation to maintain the species. However, the somatic cells of multicellular organisms must also be protected from genetic change to properly maintain the organized structure of the body. Nucleotide changes in somatic cells can give rise to variant cells, some of which, through “local” natural selection, proliferate rapidly at the expense of the rest of the organism. In an extreme case, the result is the uncontrolled cell proliferation that we know as cancer, a disease that causes (in Europe and North America) more than 20% of human deaths each year. These deaths are due largely to an accumulation of changes in the DNA sequences of somatic cells, as discussed in Chapter 20. A significant increase in the mutation frequency would presumably cause a disastrous increase in the incidence of cancer by accelerating the rate at which somatic-cell variants arise. Thus, both for the perpetuation of a species with a large number of genes (germ-cell stability) and for the prevention of cancer resulting from mutations in somatic cells (somatic-cell stability), multicellular organisms like ourselves depend on the remarkably high fidelity with which their DNA sequences are replicated and maintained.
In all cells, DNA sequences are maintained and replicated with high fidelity. The mutation rate, approximately one nucleotide change per 1010 nucleotides each time the DNA is replicated, is roughly the same for organisms as different as bacteria and humans. Because of this remarkable accuracy, the sequence of the human genome (approximately 3.2 × 109 nucleotide pairs) is unchanged or changed by only a few nucleotides each time a typical human cell divides. This allows most humans to pass accurate genetic instructions from one generation to the next, and also to avoid the changes in somatic cells that lead to cancer.