Fitness is strongly influenced by rare mutations of large effect in a microbial mutation accumulation experiment.

ABSTRACT: Our understanding of the evolutionary consequences of mutation relies heavily on estimates of the rate and fitness effect of spontaneous mutations generated by mutation accumulation (MA) experiments. We performed a classic MA experiment in which frequent sampling of MA lines was combined with whole genome resequencing to develop a high-resolution picture of the effect of spontaneous mutations in a hypermutator (ΔmutS) strain of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. After ∼644 generations of mutation accumulation, MA lines had accumulated an average of 118 mutations, and we found that average fitness across all lines decayed linearly over time. Detailed analyses of the dynamics of fitness change in individual lines revealed that a large fraction of the total decay in fitness (42.3%) was att

SUBMITTER: Heilbron K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4096375 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature