Document Type

Article

Publication Date

December 2017

Publication Title

Nature Communications

Volume

8

Issue Number

1

First Page

1255

DOI

10.1038/s41467-017-02323-4

Keywords

Antimicrobial resistance, Bacterial evolution, Experimental evolution

Disciplines

Chemical Engineering | Engineering

Abstract

Sexual recombination and mutation rate are theorized to play different roles in adaptive evolution depending on the fitness landscape; however, direct experimental support is limited. Here we examine how these factors affect the rate of adaptation utilizing a “genderless” strain of Escherichia coli capable of continuous in situ sexual recombination. The results show that the populations with increased mutation rate, and capable of sexual recombination, outperform all the other populations. We further characterize two sexual and two asexual populations with increased mutation rate and observe maintenance of beneficial mutations in the sexual populations through mutational sweeps. Furthermore, we experimentally identify the molecular signature of a mating event within the sexual population that combines two beneficial mutations to generate a fitter progeny; this evidence suggests that the recombination event partially alleviates clonal interference. We present additional data suggesting that stochasticity plays an important role in the combinations of mutations observed.

Comments

SJSU users: Use the following link to login and access the article via SJSU databases.This article was published in Nature Communications, volume 8, issue 1, 2017, and can also be found online here.Copyright © 2017, The Authors

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS