Pleiotropic mutations can rapidly evolve to directly benefit self and cooperative partner despite unfavorable...

Cooperation, paying a cost to benefit others, is widespread. Cooperation can be promoted by pleiotropic 'win-win' mutations which directly benefit self (self-serving) and partner (partner-serving). Previously, we showed that partner-serving should be defined as increased benefit supply rate per intake benefit. Here, we report that win-win mutations can rapidly evolve even under conditions unfavorable for cooperation. Specifically, in a well-mixed environment we evolved engineered yeast cooperative communities where two strains exchanged costly metabolites, lysine and hypoxanthine. Among cells that consumed lysine and released hypoxanthine, ecm21 mutations repeatedly arose. ecm21 is self-serving, improving self's growth rate in limiting lysine. ecm21 is also partner-serving, increasing hypoxanthine release rate per lysine consumption and the steady state growth rate of partner and of community. ecm21 also arose in monocultures evolving in lysine-limited chemostats. Thus, even without any history of cooperation or pressure to maintain cooperation, pleiotropic win-win mutations may readily evolve to promote cooperation.