Mutations are fundamental for evolution. For many years it has been thought that mutagenesis occurs only in dividing cells. Now it is clear that mutations arise in non-dividing or slowly dividing microorganisms. Natural populations spend most of the time in stressful environments where their growth rate is highly reduced. Thus, the existence of a mutagenesis process, independent of multiplication (stress-induced mutagenesis, SIM), might have a profound evolutionary role. In the presented paper we review the stateof-the-art in enteric and non-enteric bacteria. We describe different experimental systems as well as the mechanisms and models presented to explain the huge amount of data obtained in more than twenty years of research.
📖 افتح في inklap 🔗 DOI 📮 اطلب بحثاً