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Transposon Mutagenesis in Disease, Drug Discovery, and Bacterial Evolution

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Stress-Induced Mutagenesis

Abstract

Transposons are diverse and ubiquitous in living organisms, where they function in gene expression regulation, chromosomal rearrangement, and acceleration of evolutionary change. Their potential uses in, and consequences to, human health are numerous. The smallest transposons, insertion sequence (IS) elements, are prevalent in prokaryotes. Recently, one such element, IS5, has been shown to activate expression of the glpFK operon in E. coli in a mechanistically well-defined Lamarckian fashion (Zhang and Saier, PLoS Genet 5:e1000689, 2009a; Mol Microbiol 74:29–43, 2009b). A recent publication by Wang and Wood (ISME J 5:1517–1525, 2011) has revealed that IS5 also mediates directed mutation of the E. coli flagellar master switch operon, flhDC, and unpublished evidence suggests that the same occurs in other E. coli operons. The question is no longer, “Darwin or Lamarck?”; we must now see biological evolution in terms of Darwin and Lamarck. We are at the threshold of a new era in biological research with a grasp of the genetic basis for Lamarckian evolution at hand.

The most incomprehensible thing in the universe is that the universe is so comprehensible.

-Albert Einstein

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Acknowledgments 

The research conducted in our laboratory was supported by NIH grant GM077402. We thank Carl Welliver for his assistance in the preparation of this chapter.

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  1. Division of Biological Sciences, Department of Molecular Biology, University of California, 9500 Gilman Drive, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0116, USA

    Zhongge Zhang, Jing Wang, Maksim A. Shlykov & Milton H. Saier Jr.

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  1. Zhongge Zhang
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  2. Jing Wang
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Correspondence to Milton H. Saier Jr. .

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  1. , Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, 4100 Derring Lab, Blacksburg, 24061, Virginia, USA

    David Mittelman

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Zhang, Z., Wang, J., Shlykov, M.A., Saier, M.H. (2013). Transposon Mutagenesis in Disease, Drug Discovery, and Bacterial Evolution. In: Mittelman, D. (eds) Stress-Induced Mutagenesis. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6280-4_4

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