Mutations acquired to withstand chloroquine exposure therefore give rise to significant biochemical alterations in the parasite.
These mutations may enable the mutant organism to withstand particular environmental stresses better than wild-type organisms, or reproduce more quickly.
As Table 3 shows, several of the different lines independently converged upon the same mutations suggesting that these mutations, conferring the ability to withstand extreme temperatures, may: (1) be preferred sites of heat mutagenesis [ 15] while (2) maintain the phage's ability to infect and replicate successfully within its host.
The only connection between ID and this presentation were some statements meant to show that because lots of mutations do not destroy whole genomes, genomes have been designed to withstand mutations.
Genetic robustness can be defined as (i) the ability of a biological system to withstand mutations due to redundancy, here the ability of duplicates to balance loss of function in other copies and (ii) participation in a biological network, e.g., alternative metabolic pathways and regulatory networks.
Tsvetkov et al. used a genetic screen to find the mutations that allowed cancer cells to withstand exposure to proteasome inhibitors.
As such, one could conclude that all (or a subset) of the mutations found confer the ability to withstand brief exposure to 70°C.
It has been proposed that extremely large genomes (like those of certain tree species) are an adaptation to withstand somatic mutations over the long haul, because of the mutagenic effects of pollutants, radiations or transposable elements are diluted [ 100] inside non-coding (and hence not harmful) junk DNA.
Sequences have to be evolved in order to withstand high mutation rates because initializing the system already at high mutation rates (μ ≥ 0.013 ) with randomly generated units of replication leads to a quick extinction (see below).
Consequently, the chance of selecting a resistant parasite harbouring mutation(s) that enable it to withstand the effects of both drugs within a combination may be higher than previously perceived.
