Identification and dynamics of a beneficial mutation in a long-term evolution experiment with Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Twelve populations of E. coli were serially propagated for 20,000 generations in a glucose-supplemented minimal medium in order to study the dynamics of evolution. We sought to find and characterize one of the beneficial mutations responsible for the adaptation and other phenotypic changes, including increased cell size, in one of these populations.

Results

We used transposon-tagging followed by P1-transduction into the ancestor, screening for increased cell size and fitness, co-transduction analysis, and DNA sequencing. We identified a 1-bp insertion in the BoxG1 region located upstream of glmUS, an operon involved in cell-wall biosynthesis. When transduced into the ancestor, this mutation increased competitive fitness by about 5%. This mutation spread through it

SUBMITTER: Stanek MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2806358 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature