By densely confining animals by the billions to feed our large appetite for animal products, we are unwittingly accelerating the mutation of the influenza virus into strains more deadly than we have yet seen.
Mathematical models predict that exacerbating the deleterious effects of passenger mutations or accelerating the mutation rate could actually be exploited in cancer treatment (McFarland et al., 2013).
Because the error-prone polymerase UmuC plays a key role in accelerating the mutation frequency, we determined the influence of phototreatment on the development of spontaneous resistance to rifampicin.
Although limited, there is evidence to support that the predisposition to breast cancer among BRCA1 mutation carriers is due to haploinsufficiency associated with heterozygosity, which increases genomic instability and accelerates the mutation rate of other critical genes, including the second copy of BRCA1 (Konishi et al, 2011; Salmena and Narod, 2012).
First, whilst an increase in the mutation rate accelerates the accumulation of tumour-causing mutations, it will also accelerate the accumulation of mutations deleterious for tumour growth (Cahill et al. 1999); therefore, an increase in the mutation rate could potentially cause retardation of tumour growth, a phenomenon termed negative clonal selection (Beckman and Loeb 2005).
In addition, and critically, if the cancer has acquired genetic instability, this will greatly accelerate the rate of mutation accrual.
Recombination may also accelerate the accumulation of mutations and enhance viral diversification (see below) [32].
Drugs that interact synergistically to produce a strong toxic effect can accelerate the acquisition of mutations conferring drug resistance [ 14].
By inducing genomic instability, ROS accelerate the rate of mutations and lead to further neoplastic alterations, such as dysfunctions in energy metabolism, with leakage of electrons during the oxidative phosphorylation process and the ensuing generation of superoxide and subsequently hydrogen peroxide.
However, we can at least speculate that the presence of an asexual reproductive cycle may accelerate the accumulation of mutations, because a recent study showed that transition to asexuality leads to an excess number of aa substitutions in a microcrustacean, Daphnia pulex [ 30].
