Criticality in the Luria-Delbrück model with an arbitrary mutation rate

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Pan, Deng, Lin, Jie, Amir, Ariel
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Pan, Deng
Lin, Jie
Amir, Ariel
author_facet Pan, Deng
Lin, Jie
Amir, Ariel
contents The Luria-Delbrück model is a classic model of population dynamics with random mutations, that has been used historically to prove that random mutations drive evolution. In typical scenarios, the relevant mutation rate is exceedingly small, and mutants are counted only at the final time point. Here, inspired by recent experiments on DNA repair, we study a mathematical model that is formally equivalent to the Luria-Delbrück setup, with the repair rate $p$ playing the role of mutation rate, albeit taking on large values, of order unity per cell division. We find that although at large times the fraction of repaired cells approaches one, the variance of the number of repaired cells undergoes a phase transition: when $p>1/2$ the variance decreases with time, but, intriguingly, for $p<1/2$ even though the fraction of repaired cells approaches 1, the variance in number of repaired cells increases with time. Analyzing DNA-repair experiments, we find that in order to explain the data the model should also take into account the probability of a successful repair process once it is initiated. Taken together, our work shows how the study of variability can lead to surprising phase-transitions as well as provide biological insights into the process of DNA-repair.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_13339
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Criticality in the Luria-Delbrück model with an arbitrary mutation rate
Pan, Deng
Lin, Jie
Amir, Ariel
Biological Physics
Populations and Evolution
The Luria-Delbrück model is a classic model of population dynamics with random mutations, that has been used historically to prove that random mutations drive evolution. In typical scenarios, the relevant mutation rate is exceedingly small, and mutants are counted only at the final time point. Here, inspired by recent experiments on DNA repair, we study a mathematical model that is formally equivalent to the Luria-Delbrück setup, with the repair rate $p$ playing the role of mutation rate, albeit taking on large values, of order unity per cell division. We find that although at large times the fraction of repaired cells approaches one, the variance of the number of repaired cells undergoes a phase transition: when $p>1/2$ the variance decreases with time, but, intriguingly, for $p<1/2$ even though the fraction of repaired cells approaches 1, the variance in number of repaired cells increases with time. Analyzing DNA-repair experiments, we find that in order to explain the data the model should also take into account the probability of a successful repair process once it is initiated. Taken together, our work shows how the study of variability can lead to surprising phase-transitions as well as provide biological insights into the process of DNA-repair.
title Criticality in the Luria-Delbrück model with an arbitrary mutation rate
topic Biological Physics
Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.13339