The results show that more deleterious induced mutations are transmitted to the progeny by a sperm than by an egg.

Plants, animals, people all have more sperm induced mutations! There certainly is a good time for conceiving babies for both men and women for different reasons for the health and well-being of the offspring.


It is misleading to be told by a nameless prominent scientist that autism is more frequently caused by mutations from an older egg than an older sperm. All the prior science points to sperm as the much more likely causes of CNVs or de novo autism in general. Until CNVs in eggs and testis are fully and fairly studied it would be prudent to look to the epidemiological research which points to the father's age over 32 or so and dangers of spontaneous mutation generated genetic illness in the offspring. The science on sperm mutations, the epidemiology, all point to sperm and not eggs. Whatever, the male biological clock is an area of concern for potential parents and there has been years of suppression of information the general public on this subject.




EvolutionMale-biased transmission of deleterious mutations to the progeny in Arabidopsis thaliana Carrie-Ann Whittle* and Mark O. Johnston
Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, 1355 Oxford Street, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4J1
Edited by Ronald R. Sederoff, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, and approved February 3, 2003 (received for review January 29, 2003


The extent and cause of male-biased mutation rates, the higher number of mutations in sperm than in eggs, is currently an active and controversial subject. Recent evidence indicates that this male (sperm) bias not only occurs in animals but also in plants. The higher mutation rate in plant sperm was inferred from rates of evolution of neutral DNA regions, and the results were confined to the mitochondria and chloroplasts of gymnosperms. However, the relative transmission rates of deleterious mutations, which have substantial evolutionary consequences, have rarely been studied. Here, an investigation is described by using the hermaphroditic self-compatible flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, in which we artificially increased the rate of mutation in pollen (i.e., sperm donor) and maternal (i.e., egg donor) parents, by using two kinds of UV irradiation in parallel and separate experiments, and assessed the deleterious effects on fitness of the F2 generation. The results show that more deleterious induced mutations are transmitted to the progeny by a sperm than by an egg. These findings provide the first experimental evidence that more deleterious mutations are inherited from sperm than from an egg in any organism. Possible causes underlying this male bias are discussed.