RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Evolution of local mutation rate and its determinants JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 054825 DO 10.1101/054825 A1 Nadezhda V. Terekhanova A1 Vladimir B. Seplyarskiy A1 Ruslan A. Soldatov A1 Georgii A. Bazykin YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/05/22/054825.abstract AB Mutation rate varies along the human genome, and part of this variation is explainable by measurable local properties of the DNA molecule. Moreover, mutation rates differ between orthologous genomic regions of different species, but the drivers of this change are unclear. Here, we compare the local mutation rates of several species. We show that these rates are very similar between human and apes, implying that their variation has a strong underlying cryptic component not explainable by the known genomic features. Mutation rates become progressively less similar in more distant species, and these changes are partially explainable by changes in the local genomic features of orthologous regions, most importantly, in the recombination rate. However, they are much more rapid, implying that the cryptic component underlying the mutation rate is more ephemeral than the known genomic features. These findings shed light on the determinants of mutation rate evolution.