Selection in a growing colony biases results of mutation accumulation experiments.

ABSTRACT: Mutations provide the raw material for natural selection to act. Therefore, understanding the variety and relative frequency of different type of mutations is critical to understanding the nature of genetic diversity in a population. Mutation accumulation (MA) experiments have been used in this context to estimate parameters defining mutation rates, distribution of fitness effects (DFE), and spectrum of mutations. MA experiments can be performed with different effective population sizes. In MA experiments with bacteria, a single founder is grown to a size of a colony (~ 10⁸). It is assumed that natural selection plays a minimal role in dictating the dynamics of colony growth. In this work, we simulate colony growth via a mathematical model, and use our model to mimic an MA exper

SUBMITTER: Mahilkar A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9475022 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature