A population of a mutT strain of E. coli was maintained in a chemostat for 2,200 generations. Afterwards the rate, of mutation to resistance to three antibiotics was determined by the Luria-Delbrück fluctuation test. It was found that the strain had a distinctly reduced mutability after the long-term cultivation compared with the original strain. Nevertheless the mutability was still much higher than that of a wild-type strain. After transduction of the mutT gene into another genetic background the transductants showed the same mutability as the original strain indicating that the mutT allele itself had not changed. Our results support the hypothesis that under new environmental conditions mutator strains have an advantage due to their more efficient production of beneficial mutations. After optimal adaptation there is selection against high mutation rates due to the increased mutational load in the mutator population.
Previous studies have shown that the mutT, mutH and mutL mutators of Escherichia coli have a marked advantage in competition growth with otherwise coisogenic wild-type strains. As shown in this paper the same is true for the mutS mismatch mutator. In three experiments mutS could outgrow the wild-type and had higher fitness values.
We have analysed the transcription levels for the convergently overlapping Escherichia coli genes for the DNA polymerase III proofreading function (dnaQ) and ribonuclease H (rnh). The two tandem dnaQ promoters are about three times more active than the single rnh promoter as shown by analysing the level of in vivo transcription using dnaQ-galK and rnh-galK fusions. In E. coli mutants constitutively expressing the pleiotropic SOS response, which includes activities that enhance DNA repair, recombination and mutagenesis, a strong reduction in rnh transcription was observed. The lexA51 recA441 double mutant which fully expresses the SOS response shows the strongest reduction in rnh transcription and the highest increase in dnaQ transcription. Nuclease S1 mapping supported the finding that a constitutive expression of SOS function leads to a strong reduction in rnh transcription.
Competition experiments between Escherichia coli mutL and mut+ populations show that the mutator gene confers a selective advantage on the strain which carries it. Fitness values vary from experiment to experiment.
The dnaQ (mutD) gene product which encodes the epsilon-subunit of the DNA polymerase III holoenzyme has a central role in controlling the fidelity of DNA replication because both mutD5 and dnaQ49 mutations severely decrease the 3'-5' exonucleolytic editing capacity. It is shown in this paper that more than 95% of all dnaQ49-induced base pair substitutions are transversions of the types G:C-T:A and A:T-T:A. Not only is this unusual mutational specificity precisely that observed recently for a number of potent carcinogens such as benzo(a) pyrene diolepoxide (BPDE) and aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), which are dependent on the SOS system to mutagenize bacteria, but it is also seen for the constitutively expressed SOS mutator activity in E. coli tif-1 strains as well as for the SOS mutator activity mediated gap filling of apurinic sites. Because the G:C-T:A and A:T-T:A transversions can either result from the insertion of an adenine across from apurinic sites or arise due to the incorporation of syn-adenine opposite a purine base, we postulate that the DNA polymerase III holoenzyme also has a reduced discrimination ability in a dnaQ49 background. The introduction of a lexA (Ind-) allele, which prevents the expression of SOS functions, led to a significant reduction in the dnaQ49-caused mutator effect. Both, the mutational specificity observed and the partial lexA+ dependence of the mutator effect provoke a reanalysis of the hypothesis that the DNA polymerase III holoenzyme can be converted into the postulated but until now unidentified SOS polymerase.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.