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Science 1 August 2003:
Vol. 301. no. 5633, pp. 606 - 607
DOI: 10.1126/science.1088552
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Perspectives

DEVELOPMENT:
There's Something Curious About Paternal-Age Effects

James F. Crow

Gene mutation rates are higher in males than in females and increase with paternal age. In his Perspective, Crow explains unexpected results from a study of a congenital disease called Apert's syndrome in which the likelihood of a child developing the disease increases with the age of the father (Goriely et al.). The results of the new work imply that rather than sperm having a higher mutation rate, the harmful mutation may be positively selected perhaps because it confers some benefit within the cellular environment of the testis.

The author is in the Department of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. E-mail: jfcrow{at}facstaff.wisc.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Schizophrenia: a common disease caused by multiple rare alleles.
J. M. McClellan, E. Susser, and M.-C. King (2007)
The British Journal of Psychiatry 190, 194-199
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Gain-of-function amino acid substitutions drive positive selection of FGFR2 mutations in human spermatogonia.
A. Goriely, G. A. T. McVean, A. M. M. van Pelt, A. W. O'Rourke, S. A. Wall, D. G. de Rooij, and A. O. M. Wilkie (2005)
PNAS 102, 6051-6056
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Paternal age and schizophrenia: a population based cohort study.
A. Sipos, F. Rasmussen, G. Harrison, P. Tynelius, G. Lewis, D. A Leon, and D. Gunnell (2004)
BMJ 329, 1070
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »

E-Letters:

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Paternal-Age Effects, Social Dominance, and Evolution
David Gurwitz
Science Online, 5 Sep 2003 [Full text]

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