Conserved rates and patterns of transcription errors across bacterial growth states and lifestyles

Errors that occur during transcription have received much less attention than the mutations that occur in DNA because transcription errors are not heritable and usually result in a very limited number of altered proteins. However, transcription error rates are typically several orders of magnitude h...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2016-03, Vol.113 (12), p.3311-3316
Main Authors: Traverse, Charles C., Ochman, Howard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antibiotics
Biological Sciences
Buchnera
Buchnera aphidicola
Carsonella ruddii
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
E coli
Escherichia coli
Escherichia coli - genetics
Escherichia coli - growth & development
Escherichia coli Proteins - chemistry
Genes, Bacterial
Mutation
Proteins
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
Symbiosis
Transcription, Genetic
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Summary:Errors that occur during transcription have received much less attention than the mutations that occur in DNA because transcription errors are not heritable and usually result in a very limited number of altered proteins. However, transcription error rates are typically several orders of magnitude higher than the mutation rate. Also, individual transcripts can be translated multiple times, so a single error can have substantial effects on the pool of proteins. Transcription errors can also contribute to cellular noise, thereby influencing cell survival under stressful conditions, such as starvation or antibiotic stress. Implementing a method that captures transcription errors genome-wide, we measured the rates and spectra of transcription errors in Escherichia coli and in endosymbionts for which mutation and/or substitution rates are greatly elevated over those of E. coli. Under all tested conditions, across all species, and even for different categories of RNA sequences (mRNA and rRNAs), there were no significant differences in rates of transcription errors, which ranged from 2.3 × 10−5 per nucleotide in mRNA of the endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola to 5.2 × 10−5 per nucleotide in rRNA of the endosymbiont Carsonella ruddii. The similarity of transcription error rates in these bacterial endosymbionts to that in E. coli (4.63 × 10−5 per nucleotide) is all the more surprising given that genomic erosion has resulted in the loss of transcription fidelity factors in both Buchnera and Carsonella.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1525329113