What is mutation? A chapter in the series: How microbes “jeopardize” the modern synthesis
Devon M. Fitzgerald, Susan M. Rosenberg
Published: April 1, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007995
Fig 1. E. coli MBR models.
Abstract
Mutations drive evolution and were assumed to occur by chance: constantly, gradually, roughly uniformly in genomes, and without regard to environmental inputs, but this view is being revised by discoveries of molecular mechanisms of mutation in bacteria, now translated across the tree of life. These mechanisms reveal a picture of highly regulated mutagenesis, up-regulated temporally by stress responses and activated when cells/organisms are maladapted to their environments—when stressed—potentially accelerating adaptation. Mutation is also nonrandom in genomic space, with multiple simultaneous mutations falling in local clusters, which may allow concerted evolution—the multiple changes needed to adapt protein functions and protein machines encoded by linked genes. Molecular mechanisms of stress-inducible mutation change ideas about evolution and suggest different ways to model and address cancer development, infectious disease, and evolution generally.
Citation: Fitzgerald DM, Rosenberg SM (2019) What is mutation? A chapter in the series: How microbes “jeopardize” the modern synthesis. PLoS Genet 15(4): e1007995. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007995
Editor: W. Ford Doolittle, Dalhousie University, CANADA
Published: April 1, 2019
Copyright: © 2019 Fitzgerald, Rosenberg. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This work was supported by the American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship 132206-PF-18-035-01-DMC (DMF) and NIH grant R35-GM122598. The funders had no role in the preparation of the article.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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