Summary
Both thymine starvation and gamma radiation, like ultraviolet light, produce base change mutations to prototrophy in Escherichia coli and the Exr+ phenotype is involved in the mutagenic process. DNA strand breakage is a direct or indirect consequence of all three treatments suggesting that the filling of gaps in DNA by a process involving the exr gene product may be a common step in mutagenesis.
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Bridges, B.A., Law, J. & Munson, R.J. Mutagenesis in Escherichia coli . Molec. Gen. Genet. 103, 266–273 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00273698
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00273698