Death and population dynamics affect mutation rate estimates and evolvability under stress in bacteria.

ABSTRACT: The stress-induced mutagenesis hypothesis postulates that in response to stress, bacteria increase their genome-wide mutation rate, in turn increasing the chances that a descendant is able to better withstand the stress. This has implications for antibiotic treatment: exposure to subinhibitory doses of antibiotics has been reported to increase bacterial mutation rates and thus probably the rate at which resistance mutations appear and lead to treatment failure. More generally, the hypothesis posits that stress increases evolvability (the ability of a population to generate adaptive genetic diversity) and thus accelerates evolution. Measuring mutation rates under stress, however, is problematic, because existing methods assume there is no death. Yet subinhibitory stress levels may induce a

SUBMITTER: Frenoy A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5966242 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature