Work

Pleiotropic mutations can rapidly evolve to directly benefit self and cooperative partner despite unfavorable conditions

Year: 2021

Type: article

Abstract: Cooperation, paying a cost to benefit other individuals, is widespread. Cooperation can be promoted by pleiotropic “win-win” mutations which directly benefit self and partner. Previously, we showed that “partner-serving” should be defined as increased benefit supply rate per intake benefit (Hart & Pineda et al., 2019). Here, we report that “win-win” mutations can rapidly evolve even in nascent cooperation under conditions unfavorable for cooperation. Specifically, in a well-mixed environment we evolved engineered yeast cooperative communities where two strains exchanged costly metabolites lysine and hypoxanthine. Among cells that consumed lysine and released hypoxanthine, ecm21 mutations repeatedly arose. ecm21 is “self-serving”, improving self’s growth rate in limiting lysine. ecm21 is also “partner-serving”, increasing hypoxanthine release rate per lysine consumption and the steady state growth rate of partner. ecm21 also arose in monocultures evolving in lysine-limited chemostats. Thus, even without any pressure to maintain cooperation, pleiotropic win-win mutations may readily evolve.

Source: eLife

DOI: 10.7554/elife.57838

Authors: Samuel F. M. Hart, Chi-Chun Chen, Wenying Shou

Institutions: Fred Hutch Cancer Center, University College London

Language: English

Topic: Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,500

Funders: W. M. Keck Foundation, Royal Society, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences