Role of Mfd and GreA in Bacillus subtilis Base Excision Repair-Dependent Stationary-Phase Mutagenesis

Abstract

In this paper, we report that spontaneous genetic lesions of an oxidative nature in growing and nutritionally stressed B. subtilis strain YB955 ( hisC952 metB5 leuC427 ) cells drive Mfd- and GreA-dependent repair transactions. However, whereas Mfd and GreA elicit faithful repair events during growth to maintain genome fidelity, under starving conditions, both factors promote error-prone repair to produce genetic diversity, allowing B. subtilis to escape from growth-limiting conditions.