Mutations are central for evolution, and recent work has suggested that the type of mutations sampled by organisms may be important for evolution. Earlier work from our lab and that of Lindi Wahl suggested that flipping a long-term mutational bias should be generally beneficial, by allowing populations to sample unexplored mutational space. We have now tested this hypothesis using extensive experiments in E coli where we mapped the distribution of fitness effects of several strains with distinct mutation spectra. As expected, reversing the mutation bias is indeed generally beneficial! These are exciting results, with several interesting implications for evolution, which we continue to work on. Do check out our new paper detailing the insane number of growth curves, painstakingly run and curated by Mrudula Sane and Shazia Parveen.
AdaptationLab 