We suspect that the very elevated mutation rate of L. acidophilus is influenced by its domestication status - we observe many losses of DNA repair genes across the species. Thus, the mutation rates of L. acidophilus may be actively evolving and an ideal species for studying mutation rate evolution.

We found that LAB, and L. Acidophilus in particular, have very high mutation rates.
Mutations are quite biased towards G:C ➡️ A:T and A:T➡️G:C; and this is very apparent in L. acidophilus near the ori.

Hey Zach! First, you talk about me in class?! That’s incredibly flattering! Second, because of the meaning behind the event (a benefit to support survivors of SA) it might not be the most appropriate for class. But if you want a casual photo to show scientists as people, I’m happy to give you some!

No worries, just for anyone else who is curious I guess..

I’m also a yes.

Carl is an awesome science communicator. He’s finishing up his PhD focused on bacterial epigenetics and evolution. He’s a rockstar at applying Bayesian statistical approaches to large omics datasets!

Truly awful. I’m so sorry you and your lab are getting targeted by all this.

Of course! It was a fun paper to write because we got to really dig in and think about Rho (and mutations that evolve in Rho) in bacteria other than our usual E. coli! Especially, the gram positives where Rhi can have such an impact on development too!