Stress-induced mutation rates show a sigmoidal and saturable increase due to the RpoS sigma factor in Escherichia coli

Mutation bias and adaptation in bacteria

Genetic mutation, which provides the raw material for evolutionary adaptation, is largely a stochastic force. However, there is ample evidence showing that mutations can also exhibit strong biases, with some mutation types and certain genomic positions mutating more often than others. It is becoming increasingly clear that mutational bias can play a role in determining adaptive outcomes in bacteria in both the laboratory and the clinic. As such, understanding the causes and consequences of mutation bias can help microbiologists to anticipate and predict adaptive outcomes. In this review, we provide an overview of the mechanisms and features of the bacterial genome that cause mutational biases to occur. We then describe the environmental triggers that drive these mechanisms to be more potent and outline the adaptive scenarios where mutation bias can synergize with natural selection to define evolutionary outcomes. We conclude by describing how understanding mutagenic genomic features can help microbiologists predict areas sensitive to mutational bias, and finish by outlining future work that will help us achieve more accurate evolutionary forecasts.

Irregularities in genetic variation and mutation rates with environmental stresses

The appearance of new mutations is determined by the equilibrium between DNA error formation and repair. In bacteria like Escherichia coli, stresses are thought shift this balance towards increased mutagenesis. Recent findings, however, suggest a very uneven relationship between stress and mutations. Only a subset of stressful environments increase the net rate of mutation and different forms of nutritional stress (such as oxygen, carbon or phosphorus limitations) result in markedly different mutation rates after similar reductions in growth rate. Moreover, different stresses result in altered mutational spectra, with some increasing transposition and others increasing indel formation. Single-base substitution rates are lower with some stresses than in unstressed bacteria. Indeed, changes to the mix of mutations with stress are more widespread than a marked increase in net mutation rate. Much remains to be learned on how environments have unique mutational signatures and why some stresses are more mutagenic than others. Even beyond stress-induced genetic variation, the fundamental unresolved question in the stress-mutation relationship is the adaptive value of different types of mutations and mutation rates; is transposition, for example, more advantageous under anaerobic conditions? It remains to be investigated whether stress-specific genetic variation impacts on evolvability differentially in distinct environments.

Escherichia coli mutation rates and spectra with combinations of environmental limitations

Micro-organisms often face multiple stresses in natural habitats. Individual stresses are well known to influence mutation rates and the spectra of mutational types, but the extent to which multiple stresses affect the genetic variation in populations is unknown. Here we investigate pair-wise combinations of nutritional stresses in Escherichia coli to determine their effect on mutation rates and mutational types. Environmental interactions modified both the rate and spectrum of mutations in double-limited environments, but the effects were not additive or synergistic relative to single stresses. Generally, bacteria in the mixed environments behaved as if one of the two single-stress stimuli was more dominant and the genetic variation seen with every dual limitation was intermediate between known patterns with individual stresses. The composition of mutational types with double stresses was also intermediate between individual stress patterns. At least with mutations, the single stressor results available are reasonable indicators of stress-induced genetic variation in multifaceted natural habitats. With the influence of 11 conditions available on mutational patterns, we can now also see the clustering of mutational types as a function of these environments.

A shifting mutational landscape in 6 nutritional states: Stress-induced mutagenesis as a series of distinct stress input-mutation output relationships

Environmental stresses increase genetic variation in bacteria, plants, and human cancer cells. The linkage between various environments and mutational outcomes has not been systematically investigated, however. Here, we established the influence of nutritional stresses commonly found in the biosphere (carbon, phosphate, nitrogen, oxygen, or iron limitation) on both the rate and spectrum of mutations in Escherichia coli. We found that each limitation was associated with a remarkably distinct mutational profile. Overall mutation rates were not always elevated, and nitrogen, iron, and oxygen limitation resulted in major spectral changes but no net increase in rate. Our results thus suggest that stress-induced mutagenesis is a diverse series of stress input-mutation output linkages that is distinct in every condition. Environment-specific spectra resulted in the differential emergence of traits needing particular mutations in these settings. Mutations requiring transpositions were highest under iron and oxygen limitation, whereas base-pair substitutions and indels were highest under phosphate limitation. The unexpected diversity of input-output effects explains some important phenomena in the mutational biases of evolving genomes. The prevalence of bacterial insertion sequence transpositions in the mammalian gut or in anaerobically stored cultures is due to environmentally determined mutation availability. Likewise, the much-discussed genomic bias towards transition base substitutions in evolving genomes can now be explained as an environment-specific output. Altogether, our conclusion is that environments influence genetic variation as well as selection.

Isolating Escherichia coli strains for recombinant protein production

Escherichia coli has been widely used for the production of recombinant proteins. To improve protein production yields in E. coli, directed engineering approaches have been commonly used. However, there are only few reported examples of the isolation of E. coli protein production strains using evolutionary approaches. Here, we first give an introduction to bacterial evolution and mutagenesis to set the stage for discussing how so far selection- and screening-based approaches have been used to isolate E. coli protein production strains. Finally, we discuss how evolutionary approaches may be used in the future to isolate E. coli strains with improved protein production characteristics.

A source of artifact in the lacZ reversion assay in Escherichia coli

The lacZ reversion assay in Escherichia coli measures point mutations that occur by specific base substitutions and frameshift mutations. The tester strains cannot use lactose as a carbon source (Lac(-)), and revertants are easily detected by growth on lactose medium (Lac(+)). Six strains identify the six possible base substitutions, and five strains measure +G, -G, -CG, +A and -A frameshifts. Strong mutagens give dose-dependent increases in numbers of revertants per plate and revertant frequencies. Testing compounds that are arguably nonmutagens or weakly mutagenic, we often noted statistically significant dose-dependent increases in revertant frequency that were not accompanied by an absolute increase in numbers of revertants. The increase in frequency was wholly ascribable to a declining number of viable cells owing to toxicity. Analysis of the conditions revealed that the frequency of spontaneous revertants is higher when there are fewer viable cells per plate. The phenomenon resembles "adaptive" or "stress" mutagenesis, whereby lactose revertants accumulate in Lac(-) bacteria under starvation conditions in the absence of catabolite repression. Adaptive mutation is observed after long incubation and might be expected to be irrelevant in a standard assay using 48-h incubation. However, we found that elevated revertant frequencies occur under typical assay conditions when the bacterial lawn is thin, and this can cause increases in revertant frequency that mimic chemical mutagenesis when treatments are toxic but not mutagenic. Responses that resemble chemical mutagenesis were observed in the absence of mutagenic treatment in strains that revert by different frameshift mutations. The magnitude of the artifact is affected by cell density, dilution, culture age, incubation time, catabolite repression and the age and composition of media. Although the specific reversion assay is effective for quickly distinguishing classes of mutations induced by potent mutagens, its utility for discerning effects of weak mutagens may be compromised by the artifact.

Mutational signatures indicative of environmental stress in bacteria

Evolutionary innovations are dependent on mutations. Mutation rates are increased by adverse conditions in the laboratory, but there is no evidence that stressful environments that do not directly impact on DNA leave a mutational imprint on extant genomes. Mutational spectra in the laboratory are normally determined with unstressed cells but are unavailable with stressed bacteria. To by-pass problems with viability, selection effects, and growth rate differences due to stressful environments, in this study we used a set of genetically engineered strains to identify the mutational spectrum associated with nutritional stress. The strain set members each had a fixed level of the master regulator protein, RpoS, which controls the general stress response of Escherichia coli. By assessing mutations in cycA gene from 485 cycloserine resistant mutants collected from as many independent cultures with three distinct perceived stress (RpoS) levels, we were able establish a dose-dependent relationship between stress and mutational spectra. The altered mutational patterns included base pair substitutions, single base pair indels, longer indels, and transpositions of different insertion sequences. The mutational spectrum of low-RpoS cells closely matches the genome-wide spectrum previously generated in laboratory environments, while the spectra of high RpoS, high perceived stress cells more closely matches spectra found in comparisons of extant genomes. Our results offer an explanation of the uneven mutational profiles such as the transition-transversion biases observed in extant genomes and provide a framework for assessing the contribution of stress-induced mutagenesis to evolutionary transitions and the mutational emergence of antibiotic resistance and disease states.