Competition between high- and higher-mutating strains of Escherichia coli

Experimental studies have shown that a mutator allele can readily hitchhike to fixation with beneficial mutations in an asexual population having a low, wild-type mutation rate. Here, we show that a genotype bearing two mutator alleles can supplant a population already fixed for one mutator allele. Our results provide experimental support for recent theory predicting that mutator alleles will tend to accumulate in asexual populations by hitchhiking with beneficial mutations, causing an ever-higher genomic mutation rate.