Somatic mutations drive cancer development and may contribute to ageing and other diseases. Yet, the di culty of detecting mutations present only in single cells or small clones has limited our knowledge of somatic mutagenesis to a minority of tissues. To overcome these limitations, we introduce nanorate sequencing (NanoSeq), a new duplex sequencing protocol with error rates <5 errors per billion base pairs in single DNA molecules from cell populations. The version of the protocol described here uses clean genome fragmentation with a restriction enzyme to prevent end-repair-associated errors and ddBTPs/dATPs during A-tailing to prevent nick extension. Both changes reduce the error rate of standard duplex sequencing protocols by preventing the xation of DNA damage into both strands of DNA molecules during library preparation. We also use qPCR quanti cation of the library prior to ampli cation to optimise the complexity of the sequencing library given the desired sequencing coverage, maximising duplex coverage. The sample preparation protocol takes between 1 and 2 days, depending on the number of samples processed. The bioinformatic protocol is described in:

The extent of somatic mutation and clonal selection in the human bladder remains unknown. We sequenced 2097 bladder microbiopsies from 20 individuals using targeted (n = 1914 microbiopsies), whole-exome (n = 655), and whole-genome (n = 88) sequencing. We found widespread positive selection in 17 genes. Chromatin remodeling genes were frequently mutated, whereas mutations were absent in several major bladder cancer genes. There was extensive interindividual variation in selection, with different driver genes dominating the clonal landscape across individuals. Mutational signatures were heterogeneous across clones and individuals, which suggests differential exposure to mutagens in the urine. Evidence of APOBEC mutagenesis was found in 22% of the microbiopsies. Sequencing multiple microbiopsies from five patients with bladder cancer enabled comparisons with cancer-free individuals and across histological features. This study reveals a rich landscape of mutational processes and selection in normal urothelium with large heterogeneity across clones and individuals.

The rates and patterns of somatic mutation in normal tissues are largely unknown outside of humans1–7. Comparative analyses can shed light on the diversity of mutagenesis across species, and on long-standing hypotheses about the evolution of somatic mutation rates and their role in cancer and ageing. Here we performed whole-genome sequencing of 208 intestinal crypts from 56 individuals to study the landscape of somatic mutation across 16 mammalian species. We found that somatic mutagenesis was dominated by seemingly endogenous mutational processes in all species, including 5-methylcytosine deamination and oxidative damage. With some differences, mutational signatures in other species resembled those described in humans8, although the relative contribution of each signature varied across species. Notably, the somatic mutation rate per year varied greatly across species and exhibited a strong inverse relationship with species lifespan, with no other life-history trait studied showing a comparable association. Despite widely different life histories among the species we examined—including variation of around 30-fold in lifespan and around 40,000-fold in body mass—the somatic mutation burden at the end of lifespan varied only by a factor of around 3. These data unveil common mutational processes across mammals, and suggest that somatic mutation rates are evolutionarily constrained and may be a contributing factor in ageing.

The rates and patterns of somatic mutation in normal tissues are largely unknown outside of humans. Comparative analyses can shed light on the diversity of mutagenesis across species and on long-standing hypotheses regarding the evolution of somatic mutation rates and their role in cancer and ageing. Here, we used whole-genome sequencing of 208 intestinal crypts from 56 individuals to study the landscape of somatic mutation across 16 mammalian species. We found somatic mutagenesis to be dominated by seemingly endogenous mutational processes in all species, including 5-methylcytosine deamination and oxidative damage. With some differences, mutational signatures in other species resembled those described in humans, although the relative contribution of each signature varied across species. Remarkably, the somatic mutation rate per year varied greatly across species and exhibited a strong inverse relationship with species lifespan, with no other life-history trait studied displaying a comparable association. Despite widely different life histories among the species surveyed, including ~30-fold variation in lifespan and ~40,000-fold variation in body mass, the somatic mutation burden at the end of lifespan varied only by a factor of ~3. These data unveil common mutational processes across mammals and suggest that somatic mutation rates are evolutionarily constrained and may be a determinant of lifespan.

Cellular DNA damage caused by reactive oxygen species is repaired by the base excision repair (BER) pathway which includes the DNA glycosylase MUTYH. Inherited biallelic MUTYH mutations cause predisposition to colorectal adenomas and carcinoma. However, the mechanistic progression from germline MUTYH mutations to MUTYH-Associated Polyposis (MAP) is incompletely understood. Here, we sequence normal tissue DNAs from 10 individuals with MAP. Somatic base substitution mutation rates in intestinal epithelial cells were elevated 2 to 4-fold in all individuals, except for one showing a 31-fold increase, and were also increased in other tissues. The increased mutation burdens were of multiple mutational signatures characterised by C > A changes. Different mutation rates and signatures between individuals are likely due to different MUTYH mutations or additional inherited mutations in other BER pathway genes. The elevated base substitution rate in normal cells likely accounts for the predisposition to neoplasia in MAP. Despite ubiquitously elevated mutation rates, individuals with MAP do not display overt evidence of premature ageing. Thus, accumulation of somatic mutations may not be sufficient to cause the global organismal functional decline of ageing.

We have recently demonstrated that the human placenta exhibits a unique genomic architecture with an unexpectedly high mutation burden(Coorens et al. 2021) and it is also well recognized that the placenta uniquely expresses many genes(Gong et al. 2021). However, the placenta is relatively understudied in systematic comparisons of gene expression in different organs. The aim of the present study was to identify transcripts which were uniquely absent or depleted, comparing the placenta with 46 other human organs. Here we show that 40/46 of the other organs had no transcripts which were selectively depleted and that of the remaining six, the liver had the largest number with 26. In contrast, the term placenta had 762 depleted transcripts. Gene Ontology analysis of this depleted set highlighted multiple pathways reflecting known unique elements of placental physiology. However, analysis of term samples demonstrated massive over representation of genes involved in mitochondrial function (P=5.8x10-10), including PGC-1α - the master regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis, and genes involved in polyamine metabolism (P=2.1x10-4). We conclude that the term placenta exhibits a unique metabolic environment.

Cellular DNA damage caused by reactive oxygen species is repaired by the base excision repair (BER) pathway which includes the DNA glycosylase MUTYH. Inherited biallelic MUTYH mutations cause predisposition to colorectal adenomas and carcinoma. However, the mechanistic progression from germline MUTYH mutations to MUTYH-Associated Polyposis (MAP) is incompletely understood. Here, we sequenced normal tissue DNAs from 10 individuals with MAP. Somatic base substitution mutation rates in intestinal epithelial cells were elevated 2 to 5-fold in all individuals, except for one showing a 33-fold increase, and were also increased in other tissues. The increased mutation burdens were of multiple mutational signatures characterised by C>A changes. Different mutation rates and signatures between individuals were likely due to different MUTYH mutations or additional inherited mutations in other BER pathway genes. The elevated base substitution rate in normal cells likely accounts for the predisposition to neoplasia in MAP. Despite ubiquitously elevated mutation rates, individuals with MAP do not display overt evidence of premature ageing. Thus, accumulation of somatic mutations may not be sufficient to cause the global organismal functional decline of ageing.

Progressive dysfunction of mitochondria, organelles responsible for energy provision to cells, is a major hallmark of ageing. How the dysfunction steadily accrues over a lifetime remains unclear, given the transient nature of free radical damage and the high turnover of mitochondria. Here, we leveraged whole-genome sequencing data from single-cell derived foetal and adult haematopoietic stem/progenitor cell colonies to study the clonal dynamics of turnover and selection in mitochondrial genomes throughout life. We found that genetic drift and independent convergence of mitochondrial mutations complicate their use as lineage marks in single-cell sequencing experiments. Point mutations accrued linearly with age at an average rate of 0.007 mutations/genome/year. Using the distribution of mtDNA allele frequencies with age, we infer that a cell’s complement of mitochondrial genomes is replicated every 4-19 weeks in adults, with faster turnover rates during foetal development. Clock-like accumulation of mutations coupled with rapid turnover induces complex evolutionary dynamics in mitochondria as individuals age. Nonsense mutations are disadvantageous regardless of their heteroplasmy level. Missense variants, however, are positively selected at low heteroplasmy but negatively selected at high heteroplasmy, suggesting that some mutations improve fitness of individual mitochondria, even though fitness of the whole cell deteriorates if their expansion proceeds too far. Thus, age-related decline in mitochondrial function can arise from preferential cellular accumulation of selfish mitochondrial clones whose superior fitness ultimately disadvantages the host cell.