Back
Mechanisms in microbial evolution.
Journal article

Mechanisms in microbial evolution.

  • Arber W Department of Microbiology, University of Basel, Switzerland.
  • 1990-07-01
Published in:
  • Journal of structural biology. - 1990
Bacteria
Base Sequence
Biological Evolution
Crossing Over, Genetic
DNA Replication
DNA, Bacterial
Molecular Sequence Data
Mutagenesis
Recombination, Genetic
English Molecular genetic studies with prokaryotic microorganisms reveal that many different molecular processes contribute to the formation of spontaneous mutations. Besides infidelities in DNA replication and the consequences of environmental mutagens, enzyme-mediated DNA rearrangements bring about important, evolutionarily relevant alterations in the genetic information. Particular attention is given in this article to site-specific recombination at secondary crossover sites and to the transposition of mobile genetic elements with relaxed target specificity. Besides these diverse processes of genomic mutation the acquisition of genetic information from other organisms plays an uncontested role in microbial evolution. Enzymes and organelles mediating any of these mutational processes can be looked at as biological functions acting at the level of populations for the needs of biological evolution, rather than to fulfill the needs of individual living organisms.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/243225
Statistics
Document views: 32 File downloads: