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A Law of Mutation: Power Decay of Small Insertions and Small Deletions Associated with Human Diseases

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Abstract

Indels in evolutionary studies are rapidly decayed obeying a power law. The present study analyzed the length distribution of small insertions and deletions associated with human diseases and confirmed that the decay pattern of these small mutations is similar to that of indels when the mutation datasets are large enough. The describable decay pattern of somatic mutations may have application in the evaluation of varied penetrance of different mutations and in association study of gene mutation with carcinogenesis.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are indebt to Dr. Gabriel Gutiérrez at Departamento de Genética, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain for proofreading this manuscript. This paper is partially supported by Department of Personnel Jiangsu province “Liu Da Ren Cai Gao Feng” grant (07-B-033), and The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30970877).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Molecular Diagnostic Center, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, 215004, China

    Jia Zhang & Li Xiao

  2. SNP Institute, University of South China, Henyang, 421001, China

    Yufang Yin

  3. Department of Pharmacology, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, J1H5N4, Canada

    Pierre Sirois

  4. Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope, Duarte, CA, 91010, USA

    Hanlin Gao

  5. Department of Pharmacology, Medical College, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Kai Li

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  1. Jia Zhang
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  2. Li Xiao
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  3. Yufang Yin
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  4. Pierre Sirois
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  6. Kai Li
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Correspondence to Kai Li.

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Zhang, J., Xiao, L., Yin, Y. et al. A Law of Mutation: Power Decay of Small Insertions and Small Deletions Associated with Human Diseases. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 162, 321–328 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-009-8793-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-009-8793-7

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