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De novo evolution of macroscopic multicellularity
After 600 rounds of selection, anaerobic snowflake yeast evolved to be macroscopic, becoming around 20,000 times larger (approximately mm scale) and about 10,000-fold more biophysically tough, while retaining a clonal multicellular life cycle.
- G. Ozan Bozdag
- , Seyed Alireza Zamani-Dahaj
- & William C. Ratcliff
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Article |
Functional T cells are capable of supernumerary cell division and longevity
Through iterative cycles of viral challenge and rechallenge over ten years, mouse T cells are demonstrated to have essentially infinite potential for population expansion and longevity without malignant transformation or loss of functional competence.
- Andrew G. Soerens
- , Marco Künzli
- & David Masopust
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Article |
Within-host evolution of a gut pathobiont facilitates liver translocation
Within-host evolution is a critical regulator of commensal pathogenicity that provides a unique source of stochasticity in the development and progression of microbiota-driven disease.
- Yi Yang
- , Mytien Nguyen
- & Noah W. Palm
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Article |
Warming impairs trophic transfer efficiency in a long-term field experiment
In artificial ponds exposed to seven years of experimental warming, energy transfer between two trophic levels of freshwater plankton decreased by 56% and the biomass of both levels was reduced.
- Diego R. Barneche
- , Chris J. Hulatt
- & Gabriel Yvon-Durocher
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Article |
Targeting of temperate phages drives loss of type I CRISPR–Cas systems
CRISPR–Cas systems cannot eliminate temperate bacteriophages from bacterial populations and—in this context—the systems impose immunopathological costs on the host, creating selective pressures that may explain their patchy distribution in bacteria.
- Clare Rollie
- , Anne Chevallereau
- & Edze R. Westra
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Article |
High-resolution lineage tracking reveals travelling wave of adaptation in laboratory yeast
A renewable barcoding system reveals the evolutionary dynamics of laboratory budding yeast, showing that fitness changes over time in a travelling wave of adaptation that can fluctuate owing to leapfrogging events.
- Alex N. Nguyen Ba
- , Ivana Cvijović
- & Michael M. Desai
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Article |
An evolutionarily stable strategy to colonize spatially extended habitats
To successfully colonize a habitat in the presence of competing chemotactic bacterial populations, the winner is required to expand its range at a speed given by the habitat size and the population doubling time.
- Weirong Liu
- , Jonas Cremer
- & Chenli Liu
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Article |
Bacterial biodiversity drives the evolution of CRISPR-based phage resistance
The biotic environment can fundamentally alter bacteria and phage interactions, and influence the evolution of resistance mechanisms.
- Ellinor O. Alseth
- , Elizabeth Pursey
- & Edze R. Westra
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Letter |
CRISPR-guided DNA polymerases enable diversification of all nucleotides in a tunable window
A system that targets DNA polymerase activity with CRISPR-guided nickases to provide genetic diversification at user-defined loci enables forward genetic approaches.
- Shakked O. Halperin
- , Connor J. Tou
- & John E. Dueber
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Brief Communications Arising |
Ghalambor et al. reply
- Cameron K. Ghalambor
- , Kim L. Hoke
- & Kimberly A. Hughes
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Brief Communications Arising |
Contesting the evidence for non-adaptive plasticity
- François Mallard
- , Ana Marija Jakšić
- & Christian Schlötterer
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Letter |
Evolution of a designed protein assembly encapsulating its own RNA genome
Computationally designed icosahedral protein-based assemblies can protect their genetic material and evolve in biochemical environments, suggesting a route to the custom design of synthetic nanomaterials for non-viral drug delivery.
- Gabriel L. Butterfield
- , Marc J. Lajoie
- & David Baker
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Article |
The dynamics of molecular evolution over 60,000 generations
Using data from sixty thousand generations of the E. coli long-term evolution experiment, the authors shed new light on the processes that govern molecular evolution.
- Benjamin H. Good
- , Michael J. McDonald
- & Michael M. Desai
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Article |
Tempo and mode of genome evolution in a 50,000-generation experiment
Whole-genome sequencing of 264 clones sampled from 12 Escherichia coli populations evolved over 50,000 generations under identical culture conditions is used to characterize the patterns and dynamics of genome evolution over time.
- Olivier Tenaillon
- , Jeffrey E. Barrick
- & Richard E. Lenski
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Letter |
Sex speeds adaptation by altering the dynamics of molecular evolution
In a comparison between replicate sexual and asexual populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, sexual reproduction increases fitness by reducing clonal interference and alters the type of mutations that get fixed by natural selection.
- Michael J. McDonald
- , Daniel P. Rice
- & Michael M. Desai
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Brief Communications Arising |
Questioning evidence of group selection in spiders
- Lena Grinsted
- , Trine Bilde
- & James D. J. Gilbert
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Letter |
Polyploidy can drive rapid adaptation in yeast
In vitro evolution experiments on haploid, diploid, and tetraploid yeast strains show that adaptation is faster in tetraploids, providing direct quantitative evidence that in some environments polyploidy can accelerate evolutionary adaptation.
- Anna M. Selmecki
- , Yosef E. Maruvka
- & David Pellman
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Article |
Quantitative evolutionary dynamics using high-resolution lineage tracking
Random DNA barcodes were used to simultaneously track hundreds of thousands of lineages in large cell populations, revealing deterministic dynamics early in their evolution.
- Sasha F. Levy
- , Jamie R. Blundell
- & Gavin Sherlock
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Article |
Life cycles, fitness decoupling and the evolution of multicellularity
Simple cooperating groups of bacteria reproduced either by embracing or purging cheating types; those that embraced cheats adopted a life cycle of alternating phenotypic states, underpinned by a developmental switch that allowed the fitness of collectives to decouple from the fitness of constituent cells.
- Katrin Hammerschmidt
- , Caroline J. Rose
- & Paul B. Rainey
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Article |
Developmental plasticity and the origin of tetrapods
The most primitive extant bony fish, Polypterus, exhibits adaptive plasticity for life on land when raised on land rather than in water, suggesting that environmentally induced phenotypic plasticity might have facilitated the macroevolutionary transition to life on land.
- Emily M. Standen
- , Trina Y. Du
- & Hans C. E. Larsson
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Letter |
Optimization of lag time underlies antibiotic tolerance in evolved bacterial populations
Repeated exposure of the bacterium Escherichia coli to clinically relevant concentrations of ampicillin results in the evolution of tolerance—the ability to survive until the antibiotic concentration diminishes—through an extension of the lag phase, a finding that has implications for slowing the evolution of antibiotic resistance.
- Ofer Fridman
- , Amir Goldberg
- & Nathalie Q. Balaban
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Letter |
Horizontal genome transfer as an asexual path to the formation of new species
The formation of a new species can occur by an asexual mechanism by transfer of entire nuclear genomes between plant cells as shown by the creation of a new allopolyploid plant from parental herbaceous and woody plant species, this mechanism is a potential new tool for crop improvement.
- Ignacia Fuentes
- , Sandra Stegemann
- & Ralph Bock
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Letter |
Mutational and fitness landscapes of an RNA virus revealed through population sequencing
A new approach to accurately determine mutation frequencies with RNA virus populations called circular sequencing (CirSeq) has been developed; a study of the genetic composition of populations of poliovirus shows the fitness landscape for each nucleotide variant in an evolving RNA virus.
- Ashley Acevedo
- , Leonid Brodsky
- & Raul Andino
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Letter |
Pervasive genetic hitchhiking and clonal interference in forty evolving yeast populations
Whole-genome whole-population sequencing is used to examine the dynamics of genome-sequence evolution in Saccharomyces cerevisiae populations for 1,000 generations; this reveals patterns of sequence evolution driven by pervasive genetic hitchhiking and interference, and shows that beneficial mutations that escape drift and increase in frequency typically occur in cohorts.
- Gregory I. Lang
- , Daniel P. Rice
- & Michael M. Desai
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Letter |
Stabilization of cooperative virulence by the expression of an avirulent phenotype
A phenotypically avirulent subpopulation of the intestinal pathogen Salmonella typhimurium promotes evolutionary stability of virulence.
- Médéric Diard
- , Victor Garcia
- & Wolf-Dietrich Hardt
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Letter |
Evolutionary rescue from extinction is contingent on a lower rate of environmental change
Populations experiencing environmental change can often only avoid extinction through evolutionary change; in a system in which Escherichia coli has to evolve resistance to an antibiotic, the authors show that gradual environmental change allows mutational pathways that rapid change precludes, and can therefore make the difference between extinction and survival.
- Haley A. Lindsey
- , Jenna Gallie
- & Benjamin Kerr
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Books & Arts |
Astrobiology: Life's beginnings
Robert Shapiro on a reminder that laboratory experiments don't always translate to nature.
- Robert Shapiro
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Letter |
A system for the continuous directed evolution of biomolecules
- Kevin M. Esvelt
- , Jacob C. Carlson
- & David R. Liu
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Letter |
Higher rates of sex evolve in spatially heterogeneous environments
Direct experimental tests of the conditions under which sex evolves have been rare. These authors evolve populations of a facultatively sexual rotifer in homogeneous and heterogeneous environments and show that the latter promotes sex.
- Lutz Becks
- & Aneil F. Agrawal
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Research Highlights |
Evolution: Creating cooperation
Evolution of a minimal cell
Group selection versus group adaptation
Slow evolvers win in the end