The Mutation Rate in Bacteria Is About 3 Nucleotide Changes

question 35

Multiple Choice

The mutation rate in bacteria is about 3 nucleotide changes per 10 billion nucleotides per cell generation. Under laboratory conditions, bacteria such as Escherichia coli can divide and double in number about every 40 minutes. If a single Escherichia coli cell is allowed to exponentially divide for 10 hours in this manner, how many mutations would you expect to observe on average in the genome (4.5 million nucleotide pairs) of each of the resulting bacteria compared to the original cell? Assume all mutations are neutral; that is, they do not affect the cell-division time.

• A) Less than 0.001
• B) About 0.02
• C) One or two
• D) About 10
• E) About 100

---

Definitions:

Ordered List

A collection of items arranged in a sequential order, often used in programming to maintain sorted elements or to impose a specific order.

Binary Search

An algorithm that seeks a particular value within a sorted list by consistently halving the search space, indicating whether the sought value is to the left or right of the examined midpoint.

Key Comparisons

The process of comparing the keys in data structures or algorithms to sort or search through data.

Binary Search

An efficient algorithm for finding an item from a sorted list of items, by repeatedly dividing in half the portion of the list that could contain the item.