MSU's Lenski and colleagues track genetic changes
Spotlight Contact:
Richard E. Lenski, Hannah Distinguished Professor Michigan State University, lenski@msu.edu
After observing 12 populations of E. Coli bacteria grow and evolve for more than 40,000 generations over 20 years, Richard Lenski, Hannah Distinguished Professor of crop and soil sciences, and his colleagues saw one lineage consume citrate, a sodium salt of citric acid. This was a novel behavior, because the species is known by its inability to grow on citrate in an oxygen-rich environment. Using samples frozen every 500 generations, the researchers showed how genetic changes, spread across thousands of generations, led to this new trait.