A mitochondria-specific mutational signature of aging: increased rate of A>G substitutions on a heavy chain

The 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 organisms is still incomprehensible. Since mitochondria is tightly involved in aerobic energy production, it is expected that mtDNA mutational spectra is affected by the oxidative damage. Assuming that oxidative damage increases with age, we analyze mtDNA mutagenesis of different species. Analysing (i) dozens thousands of somatic mtDNA mutations in samples of different age (ii) 70053 polymorphic synonymous mtDNA substitutions, reconstructed in 424 mammalian species with different generation length and (iii) synonymous nucleotide content of 650 complete mitochondrial genomes of mammalian species we observed that the frequency of A H >G H substitutions ( H - heavy chain notation) is twice higher in species with high versus low generation length making their mtDNA more A H poor and G H rich. Considering that A H >G H substitutions are also sensitive to the time spent single stranded (TSSS) during asynchroniuos mtDNA replication we demonstrated that A H >G H substitution rate is a function of both species-specific generation length and position specific TSSS. We propose that A H >G H is a mitochondria-specific signature of oxidative damage associated with both aging and TSSS.