Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2010

Publication Title

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Volume

10

Issue

75

Publisher Name

BMC

Abstract

Background

When introduced to novel environments, the ability for a species to survive and rapidly proliferate corresponds with its adaptive potential. Of the many factors that can yield an environment inhospitable to foreign species, phenotypic response to variation in the thermal climate has been observed within a wide variety of species. Experimental evolution studies using bacteriophage model systems have been able to elucidate mutations, which may correspond with the ability of phage to survive modest increases/decreases in the temperature of their environment.

Results

Phage ΦX174 was subjected to both elevated (50°C) and extreme (70°C+) temperatures for anywhere from a few hours to days. While no decline in the phage's fitness was detected when it was exposed to 50°C for a few hours, more extreme temperatures significantly impaired the phage; isolates that survived these heat treatments included the acquisition of several mutations within structural genes. As was expected, long-term treatment of elevated and extreme temperatures, ranging from 50-75°C, reduced the survival rate even more. Isolates which survived the initial treatment at 70°C for 24 or 48 hours exhibited a significantly greater tolerance to subsequent heat treatments.

Conclusions

Using the model organism ΦX174, we have been able to study adaptive evolution on the molecular level under extreme thermal changes in the environment, which to-date had yet to be thoroughly examined. Under both acute and extended thermal selection, we were able to observe mutations that occurred in response to excessive external pressures independent of concurrently evolving hosts. Even though its host cannot tolerate extreme temperatures such as the ones tested here, this study confirms that ΦX174 is capable of survival.

Comments

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This article is posted here by permission of the publisher BMC for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in BMC Evolutionary Biology, Volume 10, Issue 75, 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-10-75

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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