Luria & Delbruck Thought Experiment #2 : Mutation

    As before, four cultures are started from one cell each, and undergo 15 divisions in four generations to produce 16 cells each, and 64 total. In the final generation, among 64 cells total, 10 cells are observed to be resistant (red).  If resistance arose by spontaneous mutations prior to exposure to bacteriophage in the last generation, then the individual cultures will have variable numbers of resistant cells, depending on whether the mutations occurred early (as in Culture 3) or late (as in Culture 1) or not at all (Cultures 2 & 4). The variance among cultures will vary ("fluctuate") strongly, and will increase further as the number of generations increases.


All text material ©2016 by Steven M. Carr