{"title":"Targeted Hypermutation as a Survival Strategy: A Theoretical Approach","authors":"Seymour Garte","doi":"10.1007/s10441-023-09471-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Targeted hypermutation has proven to be a useful survival strategy for bacteria under severe stress and is also used by multicellular organisms in specific instances such as the mammalian immune system. This might appear surprising, given the generally observed deleterious effects of poor replication fidelity/high mutation rate. A previous theoretical model designed to explore the role of replication fidelity in the origin of life was applied to a simulated hypermutation scenario. The results confirmed that the same model is useful for analyzing hypermutation and can predict the effects of the same parameters (survival probability, replication fidelity, mutation effect, and others) on the survival of cellular populations undergoing hypermutation as a result of severe stress.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"71 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Acta Biotheoretica","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10441-023-09471-9","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"MATHEMATICAL & COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Targeted hypermutation has proven to be a useful survival strategy for bacteria under severe stress and is also used by multicellular organisms in specific instances such as the mammalian immune system. This might appear surprising, given the generally observed deleterious effects of poor replication fidelity/high mutation rate. A previous theoretical model designed to explore the role of replication fidelity in the origin of life was applied to a simulated hypermutation scenario. The results confirmed that the same model is useful for analyzing hypermutation and can predict the effects of the same parameters (survival probability, replication fidelity, mutation effect, and others) on the survival of cellular populations undergoing hypermutation as a result of severe stress.
期刊介绍:
Acta Biotheoretica is devoted to the promotion of theoretical biology, encompassing mathematical biology and the philosophy of biology, paying special attention to the methodology of formation of biological theory.
Papers on all kind of biological theories are welcome. Interesting subjects include philosophy of biology, biomathematics, computational biology, genetics, ecology and morphology. The process of theory formation can be presented in verbal or mathematical form. Moreover, purely methodological papers can be devoted to the historical origins of the philosophy underlying biological theories and concepts.
Papers should contain clear statements of biological assumptions, and where applicable, a justification of their translation into mathematical form and a detailed discussion of the mathematical treatment. The connection to empirical data should be clarified.
Acta Biotheoretica also welcomes critical book reviews, short comments on previous papers and short notes directing attention to interesting new theoretical ideas.