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Mutations in Microorganisms

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Mutations are heritable changes in an organism’s genome involving alterations in the base sequence of DNA or RNA. These changes can influence cellular processes and phenotypic traits, potentially transforming the unaltered wild type into a mutant form. Such changes, termed forward mutations, are pivotal in shaping the genetic diversity of organisms.RNA viruses exhibit the highest mutation rates due to the absence of robust proofreading mechanisms during genome replication. In contrast,...

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Spontaneous mutations arise infrequently during DNA replication due to errors in the process. A key factor behind these errors is tautomeric shifts in nitrogenous bases, where bases transition from keto to enol forms or amino to imino forms. This shift can alter base-pairing rules, leading to mutations. Additionally, reactive oxygen species (ROS) arising from aerobic metabolism can damage DNA, resulting in depurination (loss of a purine base) or depyrimidination (loss of a pyrimidine base).

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Point mutations are genetic alterations involving the change of a single nucleotide base pair in DNA. Depending on how the alteration affects protein synthesis, they can lead to various consequences.Point mutations fall into the following types:Silent mutations occur when a nucleotide change does not alter the amino acid sequence due to the redundancy of the genetic code. For instance, changing ACC to ACA still encodes threonine, leaving the protein function unaffected. This occurs because...

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Mutations are changes in the sequence of DNA. These changes can occur spontaneously or they can be induced by exposure to environmental factors. Mutations can be characterized in a number of different ways: whether and how they alter the amino acid sequence of the protein, whether they occur over a small or large area of DNA, and whether they occur in somatic cells or germline cells.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 6, 2026

Site-Directed Mutagenesis for In Vitro and In Vivo Experiments Exemplified with RNA Interactions in Escherichia Coli

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How Does Transcription-Associated Mutagenesis Shape tRNA Microevolution?

Hector Baños¹, Ling Wang², Corinne Simonti²

¹Department of Mathematics, California State University, San Bernardino, CA 92407, USA.

Genome Biology and Evolution

|March 5, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) accumulate mutations due to transcription-associated mutagenesis (TAM). Our study reveals these mutations impact tRNA fitness and evolution in Caenorhabditis elegans, challenging existing models.

Keywords:

Markov substitution model Mircroevolution Transcription-associated mutagenesis tRNA

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Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

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Published on: February 3, 2023

Area of Science:

Molecular Biology
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics

Background:

Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) are essential, highly conserved genes with high transcription rates.
tRNAs exhibit high transcription-associated mutagenesis (TAM) and strong purifying selection.
The impact of TAM-induced, non-uniform mutations on tRNA fitness remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how transcription-associated mutagenesis (TAM) influences tRNA molecule fitness.
To analyze the evolutionary patterns of tRNAs on short timescales.
To model tRNA microevolution driven by TAM.

Main Methods:

Analysis of tRNA allelic variation in Caenorhabditis elegans strains.
Development of a continuous Markov substitution model incorporating TAM-specific mutational biases.
Comparison of TAM-biased models with standard evolutionary models (e.g., GTR).

Main Results:

Observed tRNA secondary structure characteristics align with predicted TAM-biased patterns.
A TAM-biased substitution model provides a better fit to C. elegans tRNA data than standard models.
tRNAs in natural populations harbor structure-destabilizing mutations with potential fitness costs.

Conclusions:

TAM significantly shapes tRNA evolution and fitness, even with conserved secondary structures.
TAM-biased models are crucial for accurately studying tRNA evolution.
tRNA mutations, while potentially tolerated, likely incur fitness costs, impacting genotype-phenotype relationships.