Evolution study suggests DNA mutations are less random than we thought Chance plays a big part in evolution. Conventiona…

Evolution study suggests DNA mutations are less random than we thought

Chance plays a big part in evolution. Conventional thinking goes that DNA mutations will randomly arise in an organism’s genome, and if these new traits happen to help the organism survive and reproduce, then those mutations will be passed down to the next generation. Over a long enough period, the traits can become characteristic of a population or species.

But is there a pattern to where in the genome DNA mutations occur?
To investigate, researchers from UC Davis and the Max Planck Institute grew hundreds of thale cress plants in the lab, then sequenced their genomes and compared where DNA mutations had taken place – and a non-random pattern seemed to emerge.
“We always thought of mutation as basically random across the genome,” says Grey Monroe, lead author of the study. “It turns out that mutation is very non-random and it’s non-random in a way that benefits the plant. It’s a totally new way of thinking about mutation.