Higher Germline Mutagenesis of Genes with Stronger Testis Expressions Refutes the Transcriptional Scanning Hypothesis.

Abstract

Why are more genes expressed in the testis than in any other organ in mammals? The recently proposed transcriptional scanning hypothesis posits that transcription alleviates mutagenesis through transcription-coupled repair so has been selected in the testis to modulate the germline mutation rate in a gene-specific manner. Here, we show that this hypothesis is theoretically untenable because the selection would be too weak to have an effect in mammals. Furthermore, the analysis purported to support the hypothesis did not control known confounding factors and inappropriately excluded genes with no observed de novo mutations. After remedying these problems, we find the human germline mutation rate of a gene to rise with its testis expression level. This trend also exists for inferred coding strand-originated mutations, suggesting that it arises from transcription-associated mutagenesis. Furthermore, the testis expression level of a gene robustly correlates with its overall expression in other organs, nullifying the need to explain the testis silencing of a minority of genes by adaptive germline mutagenesis. Taken together, our results demonstrate that human testis transcription increases the germline mutation rate, rejecting the transcriptional scanning hypothesis of extensive gene expressions in the mammalian testis.