Highest nucleotide substitution rate

Range >1 substitution/105 nts/day
Organism Virus Microviridae spp.
Reference Minot S, Bryson A, Chehoud C, Wu GD, Lewis JD, Bushman FD. Rapid evolution of the human gut virome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Jul 23 110(30):12450-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1300833110. p.12452 right column 2nd paragraphPubMed ID23836644
Method "Longitudinal Base Substitution in Viral Contigs: The depth of sequence information available and the quality of the viral contigs allowed a detailed assessment of the rates of accumulation of base substitutions. For each viral contig at each time point, the extent of nucleotide polymorphism was determined by aligning reads within each sample. The extent of nucleotide substitution then was compared for each contig between time points, and substitution frequencies were correlated with biological features."
Comments "The four contigs with the highest rate of nucleotide substitution were all members of the Microviridae (Fig. 3A). The main variant for each lineage showed 1–4% nucleotide substitutions over the course of the experiment (more than one substitution per 105 nt per day). An alternative explanation for these high substitution rates could be the immigration of new closely related Microviridae into the community...Microviridae lineages showed up to 4% substitution in the main variant over the 2.5-y period studied, consistent with laboratory experiments also showing high mutation rates for Microviridae (ref 39)."
Entered by Uri M
ID 110709