Evolution of mutation rates in hypermutable populations of Escherichia coli propagated at very small effective population size.

ABSTRACT: Mutation is the ultimate source of the genetic variation-including variation for mutation rate itself-that fuels evolution. Natural selection can raise or lower the genomic mutation rate of a population by changing the frequencies of mutation rate modifier alleles associated with beneficial and deleterious mutations. Existing theory and observations suggest that where selection is minimized, rapid systematic evolution of mutation rate either up or down is unlikely. Here, we report systematic evolution of higher and lower mutation rates in replicate hypermutable Escherichia coli populations experimentally propagated at very small effective size-a circumstance under which selection is greatly reduced. Several populations went extinct during this experiment, and these populations tende

SUBMITTER: Singh T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5377030 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature