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Global Rebalancing of Cellular Resources by Pleiotropic Point Mutations Illustrates a Multi-scale Mechanism of Adaptive Evolution

ABSTRACT: Pleiotropic regulatory mutations affect diverse cellular processes, posing an explicit challenge to our multi-scale understanding of the genotype-phenotype relationships across multiple biological scales. Adaptive Laboratory Evolution (ALE) allows for such mutations to be found and characterized in the context of clear selection pressures. Here, several ALE-selected single-mutation variants in Escherichia coli’s RNA polymerase (RNAP) are detailed using an integrated multi-scale experimental and computational approach. While these mutations increase cellular growth rates in steady environments, they reduce tolerance to stress and environmental fluctuations. We detail structural changes in the RNAP that rewire the transcriptional machinery to rebalance proteome and energy allocation towards growth and away from several hedging and stress functions. SurprisinglyW, we find that while these mutations occur in diverse locations in the RNAP, they share a common adaptive mechanism. In turn, these findings highlight the resource allocation trade-offs organisms face and suggest how the structure of the regulatory network enhances evolvability.

ORGANISM(S): Escherichia coli str. K-12 substr. MG1655

PROVIDER: GSE59377 | GEO | 2016/04/28

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA255216

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Studies of the RNA polymerase-binding molecule ppGpp in bacteria and plants have shown that changes to the kinetics of the RNA polymerase can have dramatic biological effects in the short-term as a stress response. Here we describe the reprogramming of the kinetic parameters of the RNAP through mutations arising during laboratory adaptive evolution of Escherichia coli in minimal media. The mutations cause a 10- to 30-fold decrease in open complex stability at a ribosomal promoter and approximately a 10-fold decrease in transcriptional pausing in the his operon. The kinetic changes coincide with large scale transcriptional changes, including strong downregulation of motility, acid-resistance, fimbria, and curlin genes which are observed in site-directed mutants containing the RNA polymerase mutations as well as the evolved strains harboring the mutations. Site-directed mutants also grow 60% faster than the parent strain and convert the carbon-source 15% to 35% more efficiently to biomass. The results show that long-term adjustment of the kinetic parameters of RNA polymerase through mutation can be important for adaptation to a condition. Mutations in the RNA polymerase beta prime subunit (rpoC) were discovered in E. coli following adaptation to continual logarithmic growth (OD <= 0.3) in glycerol M9 minimal media at 30 C. We used site-directed mutagenesis to make strains of E. coli isogenic to wild-type except for single adaptive rpoC mutations. We found they increase growth rate in this condition by 60%. In order to understand how the mutations affect gene expression in this condition, we extracted total mRNA from the strains, which had been growing in the adaptive evolution condition, at OD=0.3. There were three RNAP mutants and the wild-type (E. coli K-12 MG1655). Each strain had three flasks from which RNA was extracted (three biological replicates). There were no technical replicates. The mRNA was synthesized into cDNA, labeled, and hybridized to an Affymetrix E. coli 2.0 GeneChip.

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Global Rebalancing of Cellular Resources by Pleiotropic Point Mutations Illustrates a Multi-scale Mechanism of Adaptive Evolution

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