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Updated: Jul 17, 2025

Assessing Somatic Hypermutation in Ramos B Cells after Overexpression or Knockdown of Specific Genes
Published on: November 1, 2011
Targeted Hypermutation as a Survival Strategy: A Theoretical Approach
1Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers University, 160 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854-8020, USA. sy.garte@rutgers.edu.
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.
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