Insights into the presence or absence of small cells subpopulations like cells with high mutation rates or cancer stem-like cells in individual tumors will clarify resistance and sensitivity to cytotoxic and targeted agents.
This suggests a value for N e between 153,000 and 198,000 that will have to be scaled downward, if actual mutation rates are higher, like in human pedigrees [ 141].
Furthermore, we developed Monte-Carlo simulations for finite sexual, diploid asexual and hybridogenetic populations of two different sizes (2000 and 200 individuals, respectively) to account for the effect of higher male mutation rates and stochastic events like drift effects and Muller's ratchet.
We have obtained plausible driver genes for many low mutation rate cancers like gliomas, acute myeloid leukemia and prostate cancer.
The pattern of mutation diffusion is that mutation rates contribute to deleterious mutations, while the " lessonae-like preference" favours the production of offspring of P. esculentus males with a stronger mutation accumulation on their R genome.
Here, in stark contrast, we show that a single quasispecies can integrate a large amount of information at high mutation rates, and that it behaves functionally like an ecosystem.
Due to high mutation rates in noncoding parts of nuclear genes like 28S, insertions and deletions accumulate through evolution106,107, resulting in numerous gaps in a sequence alignment.
Like for the spontaneous mutation rates, we observed an enrichment of transitions (n = 6) over transversions (n = 2).
A mixture of long and short branch lengths in the star-like phylogenies could also be caused by heterogeneous mutation rates.
Values below 1 indicate only moderate deviation from clock-like behaviour [ 66], thus our estimates of relative mutation rates were not significantly affected by these deviations.
