Historical Highlight: The Luria-Delbrück Fluctuation Test – A Study of the Nature of Bacterial Mutations Conferring Resistance to Infection by Bacteriophage

Abstract

In 1943, Salvador Luria, then at Indiana University, and Max Delbrück, then at Vanderbilt, published an analysis of mutations in Escherichia coli conferring resistance to infection by bacterial viruses, also referred to as bacteriophages [1]. Of note, Luria and Delbrück advanced our understanding of mutation prior to the publication by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty in 1944, demonstrating that the so-called transforming principle, which was able to dramatically alter the surface and functional phenotypes of pneumococci, was composed of DNA [2]. The Avery et al paper is the focus of the initial Historical Highlight [3].

Keywords

• Bacteriophage
• resistance to infection
• mutation
• mutation rate
• statistical variance