Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fathers Pass On Four Times As Many New Genetic Mutations As Mothers, Says Study (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-mutations dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Children inherit four times as many new mutations from their fathers than their mothers, according to research that suggests faults in the men's DNA are a driver for rare childhood diseases. Researchers studied 14,000 Icelanders and found that men passed on one new mutation for every eight months of age, compared with women who passed on a new mutation for every three years of age. The figures mean that a child born to 30-year-old parents would, on average, inherit 11 new mutations from the mother, but 45 from the father. Kari Stefansson, a researcher at the Icelandic genetics company, deCODE, which led the study, said that while new mutations led to variation in the human genome, which is necessary for evolution to happen, "they are also believed to be responsible for the majority of cases of rare diseases in childhood." In the study published in Nature, the researchers analyzed the DNA of 1,500 Icelanders and their parents and, for 225 people, at least one of their children. They found that new mutations from mothers increased by 0.37 per year of age, a quarter of the rate found in men. While the vast majority of new mutations are thought to be harmless, occasionally they can disrupt the workings of genes that are important for good health.

11 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. I guess this means by NEDHead · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fathers are the mother of evolution

    1. Re:I guess this means by v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mutations occur mainly during cell replication. Given how many sperm are produced (compared to eggs) there's going to be many more generations of sperm (in the stem cell lineage) replications between a man and a woman over their lifetime. I've seen 5 billion quoted as a man's lifetime sperm production. From 1 starting stem cell that's over 30 generations. I don't see any hard data on how many eggs a woman is born with (since they don't replicate beyond that) but if it's say 50,000, that's around 15 generations. Each generation is an opportunity for more mutation. So the man has up to 15 additional generations of sperm production as he ages.

      I've also seen a study awhile ago that mentioned that older men have more mutations in their sperm, which also makes sense for the same reason, they're farther down the generation tree in their sperm production. Nothing about this article is surprising in the least.

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  2. Re: xx vs. xy by Matt.Battey · · Score: 5, Informative

    Male gametes are continuously produced, while female gametes are 100% present at birth. Transcription errors occurs during replication which may be as much of a factor as male vs. female gonad tissue depth.

  3. NO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    No. Not true. This story is lies. Fake news. Everybody knows that men and women are exactly the same at everything. Claiming otherwise is sexist and misogynist and racist and fascist and placist and bassist. You are Nazis and monsters and white supremacists. Retract this article immediately or we're going after your sponsors. Die in hell.

    Signed,
    The Tolerance Brigade

    1. Re:NO by lucm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Everybody knows that men and women are exactly the same at everything.

      ... except when the boat is sinking, then suddenly equality vanishes.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    2. Re:NO by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No. Not true. This story is lies. Fake news. Everybody knows that men and women are exactly the same at everything. Claiming otherwise is sexist and misogynist and racist and fascist and placist and bassist.

      Not necessarily fake news, but serving news.

      I know you were making a funny - a good one by the way - but there is an angle to the news.

      As feminism has convinced women for a long time that they don't need men, and as we now have more educated women than men, and no end of that trend in sight, single, educated women are hitting their 30's and suddenly realizing that their reproductive drive is on high alert. But there is a problem. They are having a hellava time meeting and sealing the deal with any male that they consider worthy. This is based on the inherent acceptability factor that the female of the species wants to marry up in class.

      So we are seeing a lot of educated women in a panic, freezing their eggs in hopes of finding a male who lives up to their standards. Some companies actually pay for this process. But that's a loser's game, because as they age, their value to the males of the species drops, and unless they plan on marrying someone much younger, there are not going to be too many 50 year old men who want to have children at that age.

      Now there are a couple solutions. Marry young and have children at a more physically appropriate age, then work your career, and the other is to make the educational environment less unpleasant for men. Having been through that, it is an issue when you are reminded every day of how terrible a sub-human you are. Because all nature versus nurture aside, women inherently call the shots on reproduction, and at present, have largely priced themselves out of the market.

      Back to the subject at hand. As many women panic over their declining fertility, and are taking some big efforts to try to artificially extend it, there is a social need to try to pin blame for the issue on the male of the species. The underlying message is "Grow up men" "stop being immature and we need fresh young sperm, because if you don't give it to us when you are young, any problems are your fault."

      Whereas the real issue is that if you want children, you don't wait until you are at an age when most earlier humans were grandparents or dead. We have had some success with the artificial extension of childhood, but cannot extend that much more without a lot of bad issues. My great grandparents were married at 13 years old, but they had to to have a good chance of raising children before they died.

      Today, it's the opposite. Some people are concerned they will die before having any children.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  4. Re: xx vs. xy by deviated_prevert · · Score: 4, Funny

    female gametes are 100% present at birth

    That's recently been found to be untrue.

    Not quite. It depends greatly upon the health of the female in the years just prior to puberty. A more concise explanation of ovogenesisis here. This is indeed news for most nerds of the computer kind but then again we do understand the concept of having soldered in ram that cannot be increased. With male nerds the problem lies in the waste of excess male gametes while thinking about the physical aspects of a females reproductive organs. Thus reducing the quantity of male gametes available when the occasion actually occurs. So we do not reproduce as frequently as males who do the real thing, a situation which in theory could reduce the population of nerds in the long run.

    --
    This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
  5. Re:Best Place to Experiment by Ubi_NL · · Score: 4, Informative

    eh yah, but that's completely unrelated to TFA. This is about mutation accumulation in germ cells (i.e. sperm). This mutation rate is not specific for the Y chromosome, thus the girl babies receive the mutations at the exact same rate as the boy babies.

    Basically all the article states is that mature egg cells accumulate fewer mutations than mature sperm cells, which is kinda obvious as their stem cells go through fewer cell divisions until they create the cell that actually becomes the germ cell.

    Really people, why is this modded up?

    --

    If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
  6. Please reread the summary by FeelGood314 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You read the short summary incorrectly. They never said men have more mutations they said men pass on more mutations to their children, both to sons and daughters. Other than in their sperm men don't have more mutations than women.

  7. Re:Sex Selection by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This makes me wonder if men having substantially higher mutation rates than women is a result of sex selection: women tending to be more attracted to men whose genes mutate faster,

    Probably not. Almost all "just so" stories about evolution (and biology in general) are wrong.

    A nice way to test your hypothesis would be to, say, do the experiment with the lab standards, mice, rats, zebrafish and drosophila. You could also both allow for choice and largely eliminate it.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  8. First 40 posts are clueless - Fathers pass on more by FeelGood314 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I lose faith in slashdot readers sometime. The study said nothing about X or Y chromosomes or that men had more mutations than women. It said fathers as they age pass on more mutations to BOTH their sons and daughters than mothers.