Mutators and Long-Term Molecular Evolution of Pathogenic Escherichia coli O157:H7

Abstract

It has been proposed that an increased mutation rate (indicated by the frequency of hypermutable isolates) has facilitated the emergence of Escherichia coli O157:H7. Analysis of the divergence of 12 genes shows no evidence that the pathogen has undergone an unusually high rate of mutation and molecular evolution.

Keywords

• United States