Abstract
Stress-induced mutagenesis has been studied in cancer cells, yeast, bacteria, and archaea, but not in viruses. In a recent publication, we present a bacteriophage model showing an apparent stress-induced mutagenesis. We show that the stress does not drive the mutagenesis, but only selects the fittest mutants. The mechanism underlying the observed phenomenon is a phenotypic heterogeneity that resembles persistence of the viral population. The new findings, the background for the ongoing debate on stress-induced mutagenesis, and the phenotypic heterogeneity underlying a novel phage infection strategy are discussed in this short manuscript.
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The study was supported by Grants from the European Research Council StG program (336079), the Israel Science Foundation (268/14) and the Israeli Ministry of Health (9988-3).
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Communicated by M. Kupiec.
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Yosef, I., Edgar, R. & Qimron, U. Phenotypic heterogeneity in a bacteriophage population only appears as stress-induced mutagenesis. Curr Genet 62, 771–773 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-016-0606-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-016-0606-2