Stewart F M, Gordon D M, Levin B R
Department of Mathematics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912.
Genetics. 1990 Jan;124(1):175-85. doi: 10.1093/genetics/124.1.175.
In the 47 years since fluctuation analysis was introduced by Luria and Delbrück, it has been widely used to calculate mutation rates. Up to now, in spite of the importance of such calculations, the probability distribution of the number of mutants that will appear in a fluctuation experiment has been known only under the restrictive, and possibly unrealistic, assumptions: (1) that the mutation rate is exactly proportional to the growth rate and (2) that all mutants grow at a rate that is a constant multiple of the growth rate of the original cells. In this paper, we approach the distribution of the number of mutants from a new point of view that will enable researchers to calculate the distribution to be expected using assumptions that they believe to be closer to biological reality. The new idea is to classify mutations according to the number of observable mutants that derive from the mutation when the culture is selectively plated. This approach also simplifies the calculations in situations where two, or many, kinds of mutation may occur in a single culture.
自卢里亚和德尔布吕克引入波动分析以来的47年里，它已被广泛用于计算突变率。到目前为止，尽管此类计算很重要，但波动实验中出现的突变体数量的概率分布仅在以下限制性且可能不切实际的假设下才为人所知：（1）突变率与生长率精确成正比；（2）所有突变体的生长速率是原始细胞生长速率的恒定倍数。在本文中，我们从一个新的角度来探讨突变体数量的分布，这将使研究人员能够使用他们认为更接近生物学现实的假设来计算预期的分布。新的思路是根据培养物进行选择性平板接种时由突变产生的可观察到的突变体数量对突变进行分类。这种方法还简化了在单一培养物中可能发生两种或多种突变的情况下的计算。
