Mitochondrial mutational spectrum is associated with mammalian longevity: a novel signature of oxidative damage

Abstract

AbstractThe mutational spectrum of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) does not resemble any of the known mutational signatures of the nuclear genome and variation in mtDNA mutational spectra between different tissues and organisms is still incomprehensible. Since mitochondria is tightly involved in aerobic energy production, it is expected that mtDNA mutational spectra may be affected by the oxidative damage which is increasing with organismal aging. However, the well-documented mutational signature of the oxidative damage, G>T substitutions, is typical only for the nuclear genome while it is extremely rare in mtDNA. Thus it is still unclear if there is a mitochondria-specific mutational signature of the oxidative damage. Here, reconstructing mtDNA mutational spectra for 424 mammalian species with variable generation length which is a proxy for oocyte age, we observed that the frequency of AH>GH substitutions (H - heavy chain notation) is positively correlated with organismal longevity. This mutational bias from AH to GH significantly affected the nucleotide content of analyzed 650 complete mammalian mitochondrial genomes, where fourfold degenerative synonymous positions of long-lived species become more AH poor and GH rich. Because (i) A>G is a substitution, typical for mtDNA; (ii) it is characterized by very strong asymmetry: A>G is several-fold more frequent on a heavy chain as compared to the light one; (iii) it is sensitive to the time being single-stranded during mtDNA asynchronous replication; (iv) it is associated with oxidative damage of single-stranded DNA in recent experimental studies we propose that A>G is a novel mutational signature of age-associated oxidative damage of single-stranded mtDNA. The described association of the mtDNA mutational spectra with a species-specific life-history trait can significantly affect general patterns of molecular evolution of mtDNA.