Pathways of Genetic Adaptation: Multistep Origin of Mutants Under Selection Without Induced Mutagenesis in Salmonella enterica

In several bacterial systems, mutant cell populations plated on growth-restricting medium give rise to revertant colonies that accumulate over several days. One model suggests that nongrowing parent cells mutagenize their own genome and thereby create beneficial mutations (stress-induced mutagenesis). By this model, the first-order induction of new mutations in a nongrowing parent cell population leads to the delayed accumulation of visible colonies. In an alternative model (selection only), selective conditions allow preexisting small-effect mutants to initiate clones that grow and give rise to faster-growing mutants. By the selection-only model, the delay in appearance of revertant colonies reflects (1) the time required for initial clones to reach a size sufficient to allow the second mutation plus (2) the time required for growth of the improved subclone. We previously characterized a system in which revertant colonies accumulate slowly and contain cells with two mutations, one formed before plating and one after. This left open the question of whether mutation rates increase under selection. Here we measure the unselected formation rate and the growth contribution of each mutant type. When these parameters are used in a graphic model of revertant colony development, they demonstrate that no increase in mutation rate is required to explain the number and delayed appearance of two of the revertant types.     

Evidence that Accumulation of Mutants in a Biofilm Reflects Natural Selection Rather than Stress-Induced Adaptive Mutation

The accumulation of mutant genotypes within a biofilm evokes the controversy over whether the biofilm environment induces adaptive mutation or whether the accumulation can be explained by natural selection. A comparison of the virulence of two strains of the dental pathogen Streptococcus mutans showed that rats infected with one of the strains accumulated a high proportion (average, 22%) of organisms that had undergone a deletion between two contiguous and highly homologous genes. To determine if the accumulation of deletion mutants was due to selection or to an increased mutation rate, accumulations of deletion mutants within in vitro planktonic and biofilm cultures and within rats inoculated with various proportions of deletion organisms were quantified. We report here that natural selection was the primary force behind the accumulation of the deletion mutants.     

复合诱变选育高产GSH的菌株

目的:选育出GSH的高产菌株.方法:以产GSH的产朊假丝酵母(Candida utilis)为出发菌株,利用紫外-超声波复合诱变.结果:筛选得到ZnCl2抗性突变株UU3,GSH菌体含量为53.50mg·g-1,比出发菌株提高137.03%.结论:突变株UU3遗传性能稳定,可做进一步研究.     

利用Tn5定位诱变筛选紫云英根瘤菌Exo^—变种

利用Ｔｎ５定位诱变方法,对质粒ｐＪＢＢ５进行Ｔｎ５插入诱变,得到１０个Ｔｎ５在５９ｋｂＢ５外源片段上有不同插入位点的质粒ＴＮ１１,ＴＮ１１２,ＴＮ２２,ＴＮ２３,ＴＮ３１,ＴＮ４１,ＴＮ９１,ＴＮ１０１,ＴＮ１３１,ＴＮ１４１。将Ｔｎ１１等分别转移到已经含有不相容质粒ｐＰＨ１ＪＩ的紫云英根瘤菌１０７菌株中,使之发生同源变换。通过抗性选择及表型鉴别,筛选到３株菌落表型干燥（Ｍｕｃ－）的酸性胞外多糖（ＥＰＳ）合成缺陷菌株（Ｅｘｏ－）１０７（ＴＮ２２）,１０７（ＴＮ１０１）,１０７（ＴＮ１３１）。Ｓｏｕｔｈｅｒｎ杂交分析证明这３株变种的Ｔｎ５插入确实是同源交换而不是转座产生,表明经过适当改良的Ｔｎ５定位诱变法可以应用于紫云英根瘤菌Ｅｘｏ－变种的筛选。     

The Jackprot Simulation Couples Mutation Rate with Natural Selection to Illustrate How Protein Evolution Is Not Random

Protein evolution is not a random process. Views which attribute randomness to molecular change, deleterious nature to single-gene mutations, insufficient geological time, or population size for molecular improvements to occur, or invoke “design creationism” to account for complexity in molecular structures and biological processes, are unfounded. Scientific evidence suggests that natural selection tinkers with molecular improvements by retaining adaptive peptide sequence. We used slot-machine probabilities and ion channels to show biological directionality on molecular change. Because ion channels reside in the lipid bilayer of cell membranes, their residue location must be in balance with the membrane’s hydrophobic/philic nature; a selective “pore” for ion passage is located within the hydrophobic region. We contrasted the random generation of DNA sequence for KcsA, a bacterial two-transmembrane-domain (2TM) potassium channel, from Streptomyces lividans, with an under-selection scenario, the “jackprot,” which predicted much faster evolution than by chance. We wrote a computer program in JAVA APPLET version 1.0 and designed an online interface, The Jackprot Simulation , to model a numerical interaction between mutation rate and natural selection during a scenario of polypeptide evolution. Winning the “jackprot,” or highest-fitness complete-peptide sequence, required cumulative smaller “wins” (rewarded by selection) at the first, second, and third positions in each of the 161 KcsA codons (“jackdons” that led to “jackacids” that led to the “jackprot”). The “jackprot” is a didactic tool to demonstrate how mutation rate coupled with natural selection suffices to explain the evolution of specialized proteins, such as the complex six-transmembrane (6TM) domain potassium, sodium, or calcium channels. Ancestral DNA sequences coding for 2TM-like proteins underwent nucleotide “edition” and gene duplications to generate the 6TMs. Ion channels are essential to the physiology of neurons, ganglia, and brains, and were crucial to the evolutionary advent of consciousness. The Jackprot Simulation illustrates in a computer model that evolution is not and cannot be a random process as conceived by design creationists.     

The Role of Natural Selection in the Origin of Life

It is commonly accepted among origin-of-life scientists that the emergence of life was an evolutionary process involving at one stage or other the working of natural selection. Researchers disagree, however, on the nature of the chemical infrastructure that could have formed prebiotically, enabling the evolutionary process. The division of the origin-of-life research community into ‘geneticists’ and ‘metabolists’ usually revolves around the issue whether the first to arise prebiotically was a genetic polymer or a primitive metabolic system. In this paper I offer an alternative classification based on the attitude to the onset of natural selection. From this perspective I add to the conventional division between gene-first and metabolism-first groups a position I call “preparatory metabolism”. By this line of thought, an RNA or an RNA-like polymer could not have emerged prebiotically. Nevertheless, the onset of natural selection had to wait until such a polymer had arised. This paper examines the RNA-first, RNA-later, metabolism-first and preparatory-metabolism scenarios, assessing the weaknesses and strengths of each. I conclude that despite the recent theoretical advances in all these lines of research, and despite experimental breakthroughs, especially in overcoming several RNA-first hurdles, none of the examined paradigms has yet attained decisive experimental support. Demonstrating the evolvability of a potentially prebiotic infrastructure, whether genetic or metabolic, is a most serious challenge. So is the experimental demonstration of the emergence of such an infrastructure under prebiotic conditions. The current agenda before origin-of-life researchers of all stripes and colors is the search for the experimental means to tackle all these difficulties.     

On the Origin of Mitochondrial Mutants: Evidence for Intracellular Selection of Mitochondria in the Origin of Antibiotic-Resistant Cells in Yeast

In wild-type Saccharomyces cerevisiae, erythromycin and certain other antibacterial antibiotics inhibit the formation of respiratory enzymes in mitochondria by inhibiting translation on mitochondrial ribosomes. This paper is concerned with the origin of mutant cells, resistant to erythromycin by virtue of having a homogeneous population of mutant mitochondrial DNA molecules. Such mutant cells are obtained by plating wild-type (sensitive) cells on a nonfermentable substrate plus the antibiotic. Colonies of mutant cells appear first about four days after the time of appearance of established mutant cells; new colonies continue to appear, often at a constant rate, for many days. Application of the Newcombe respreading experiment demonstrates that most or all of the mutant cells which form the resistant colonies on selective medium arise only after exposure of the population to erythromycin. It is suggested that this result is most probably due to intracellular selection for mitochondrial genomes. Resistant mitochondria arising from spontaneous mutation are postulated to be at a selective disadvantage in the absence of erythromycin; reproducing more slowly than wild-type sensitive mitochondria, they cannot easily accumulate in sufficient numbers in a cell to render it resistant as a whole. In the presence of erythromycin, resistant mitochondria can continue to reproduce while sensitive mitochondria cannot, until there is a sufficient number to make the cell resistant, i.e. to permit normal cell growth. The same phenomenon is seen with respect to chloramphenicol resistance. Intracellular selection is considered more likely than direct induction of mutation by the antibiotic, since mutant cells do not accumulate in the presence of erythromycin if the mitochondrial genome is rendered non-essential by growth on glucose or nontranslatable by chloramphenicol. Intra-cellular selection provides a mechanism for direct adaptation at the cell level, compatible with currently acceptable ideas of spontaneous mutation and selection at the organelle level.     

The Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection in Ewens'' Sense (Case of Fertility Selection)

We show that the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection in Ewens' sense is valid in the case of fertility selection: the additive genetic variance in fertility divided by the mean fertility is exactly equal to the partial change in the mean fertility from the current generation to the next. This partial change is the increase in the mean additive value caused by frequency changes from one generation to the next but keeping unchanged the additive values. The only hypothesis on mating is that it does not affect the allelic frequencies in the sense that these are the same before and after mating in the parental generation, which occurs for a wide range of mating patterns going from random mating to several regular systems of inbreeding and cases of assortative mating. The fertility of couples is determined by the genes at an arbitrary number of loci, and the additive (average) allelic effects are defined by a linear system of equations, which is used to extend Ewens' optimality principle to the case of fertility selection.     

The Effects of Mutation and Natural Selection on Codon Bias in the Genes of Drosophila

Codon bias varies widely among the loci of Drosophila melanogaster, and some of this diversity has been explained by variation in the strength of natural selection. A study of correlations between intron and coding region base composition shows that variation in mutation pattern also contributes to codon bias variation. This finding is corroborated by an analysis of variance (ANOVA), which shows a tendency for introns from the same gene to be similar in base composition. The strength of base composition correlations between introns and codon third positions is greater for genes with low codon bias than for genes with high codon bias. This pattern can be explained by an overwhelming effect of natural selection, relative to mutation, in highly biased loci. In particular, this correlation is absent when examining fourfold degenerate sites of highly biased genes. In general, it appears that selection acts more strongly in choosing among fourfold degenerate codons than among twofold degenerate codons. Although the results indicate regional variation in mutational bias, no evidence is found for large scale regions of compositional homogeneity.     

The Origin of Spontaneous Mutation in SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE

Characterization of two antimutator loci in yeast shows that both are members of the same mutagenic repair system known to be responsible for almost all induced mutation (Lawrence and Christensen 1976, 1979a,b; Prakash 1976). One of the these newly isolated antimutator mutations is an allele of rev3 (Lemontt 1971b). Two other alleles of rev3 were tested and were also found to be antimutators. Double mutants carrying rev3 and mutator mutations of rad3, rad51 or rad18 are like rev3 single mutants with respect to spontaneous mutation rate, supporting the hypothesis (Hastings, Quah and von Borstel 1976) that many mutators in yeast act by channelling spontaneous lesions from accurate to mutagenic repair. However, the enhanced mutation rate seen in a radiation-resistant mutator mutant mut1 is not dependent on REV3, but is dependent on another gene designated ANT1. An additive effect on the reduction in spontaneous mutation, seen in the ant1 rev3 double-mutant strain, leads to the conclusion that at least 90% of spontaneous mutations seen in the wild type are caused by mutagenic repair of spontaneous lesions.     

Isolation of Neurospora Crassa a Mating Type Mutants by Repeat Induced Point (Rip) Mutation

In the filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa, mating type is regulated by a single locus with alternate alleles, termed A and a. The mating type alleles control entry into the sexual cycle, but during vegetative growth they function to elicit heterokaryon incompatibility, such that fusion of A and a hypha results in death of cells along the fusion point. Previous studies have shown that the A allele consists of 5301 bp and has no similarity to the a allele; it is found as a single copy and only within the A genome. The a allele is 3235 bp in length and it, too, is found as a single copy within the a genome. Within the A sequence, a single open reading frame (ORF) of 288 amino acids (mt A-1) is thought to confer fertility and heterokaryon incompatibility. In this study, we have used repeat induced point (RIP) mutation to identify functional regions of the A idiomorph. RIP mutations in mt A-1 resulted in the isolation of sterile, heterokaryon-compatible mutants, while RIP mutations generated in a region outside of mt A-1 resulted in the isolation of mutants capable of mating, but deficient in ascospore formation.     

Targeted Mutagenesis by Duplication Insertion in the Radioresistant Bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans: Radiation Sensitivities of Catalase (katA) and Superoxide Dismutase (sodA) Mutants

Deinococcus radiodurans R1 is extremely resistant to both oxidative stress and ionizing radiation. A simple and general targeted mutagenesis method was developed to generate catalase (katA) and superoxide dismutase (sodA) mutants. Both mutants were shown to be more sensitive to ionizing radiation than the wild type.     

The Timing of Uv Mutagenesis in Yeast: A Pedigree Analysis of Induced Recessive Mutation

The mechanism of UV-induced mutation in eukaryotes was studied in individual yeast cells by a procedure that combined pedigree analysis and tetrad analysis. The technique involved the induction of recessive lethals and semilethals in G1 diploid cells. Induced frequencies were 25 and 61 percent at survival levels of 90 and 77 percent, respectively. No evidence of gross chromosome aberrations was detected. Recessive mutations that affect only one strand or that affect both strands of the DNA molecule are induced much at random among a population of cells, and both types can occur within the same cell. However, the data confirm that two-strand mutations are in the majority after a low level of irradiation. The simplest explanation involves a mechanism whereby most mutations are fixed in both strands prior to the first round of post-irradiation DNA replication. The recessive mutational consequences of irradiation are exhausted at the conclusion of the first post-irradiation cell division, although dominant-lethal sectoring continues at a high level through the second post-irradiation division. It is concluded that pyrimidine dimers that persist to the second round of DNA replication are rare or ineffective.     

The HIV Mutation Browser: A Resource for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Mutagenesis and Polymorphism Data

Huge research effort has been invested over many years to determine the phenotypes of natural or artificial mutations in HIV proteins—interpretation of mutation phenotypes is an invaluable source of new knowledge. The results of this research effort are recorded in the scientific literature, but it is difficult for virologists to rapidly find it. Manually locating data on phenotypic variation within the approximately 270,000 available HIV-related research articles, or the further 1,500 articles that are published each month is a daunting task. Accordingly, the HIV research community would benefit from a resource cataloguing the available HIV mutation literature. We have applied computational text-mining techniques to parse and map mutagenesis and polymorphism information from the HIV literature, have enriched the data with ancillary information and have developed a public, web-based interface through which it can be intuitively explored: the HIV mutation browser. The current release of the HIV mutation browser describes the phenotypes of 7,608 unique mutations at 2,520 sites in the HIV proteome, resulting from the analysis of 120,899 papers. The mutation information for each protein is organised in a residue-centric manner and each residue is linked to the relevant experimental literature. The importance of HIV as a global health burden advocates extensive effort to maximise the efficiency of HIV research. The HIV mutation browser provides a valuable new resource for the research community. The HIV mutation browser is available at: http://hivmut.org.