The Mutation Rate in Bacteria Is About 3 Nucleotide Changes

The mutation rate in bacteria is about 3 nucleotide changes per 10 billion nucleotides per cell generation. Under laboratory conditions, bacteria such as Escherichia coli can divide and double in number about every 40 minutes. If a single Escherichia coli cell is allowed to exponentially divide for 10 hours in this manner, how many mutations would you expect to observe on average in the genome (4.5 million nucleotide pairs) of each of the resulting bacteria compared to the original cell? Assume all mutations are neutral; that is, they do not affect the cell-division time.

A) Less than 0.001
B) About 0.02
C) One or two
D) About 10
E) About 100

Correct Answer:

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