ARTICLE

Increased Mutation Rate of E. coli K12 Cultures Maintained in Continuous Logarithmic Growth

¹ From the Laboratory of The Rockefeller University, the Donner Laboratory of Biophysics and Medical Physics, and the Division of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Continuous logarithmic growth of E. coli K12 in an automatic culture cell resulted in marked increases in the proportion of several mutants. The P₁ phage-resistant cells increased 10 to 3000 times, the T₂ phage-resistant cells 1 to 1000 times, the neomycin-resistant cells 1 to 10 times, and the virus-producing cells 30 to 70 times. No change occurred in the penicillin-resistant cells. Calculation of the growth curves and direct determination of the mutation rates by the null fraction method showed that the increases in the proportion of mutants were due to increases in the mutation rates.

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