An experimental solution for the Luria-Delbrück fluctuation problem in measuring hypermutation rates

A cell line harboring all trans-acting elements necessary for hypermutation was transfected with a plasmid harboring the major cis-acting elements plus a green fluorescent protein gene containing a premature chain-termination codon. Transfected cells do not fluoresce unless the stop codon reverts. When a sizable cell population is purged of revertants by sorting, the frequency of mutants increases linearly with time, and there is no Luria-Delbrück fluctuation effect. Moreover, as mutant frequencies seemed to vary less than cell numbers in replicate cultures, it is suggested that hypermutation might not be coupled closely to cell division.