A High Frequency of Beneficial Mutations Across Multiple Fitness Components in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Mutation-accumulation experiments are widely used to estimate parameters of spontaneous mutations affecting fitness. In many experiments only one component of fitness is measured. In a previous study involving the diploid yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we measured the growth rate of 151 mutation-accumulation lines to estimate parameters of mutation. We found that an unexpectedly high frequency of fitness-altering mutations was beneficial. Here, we build upon our previous work by examining sporulation efficiency, spore viability, and haploid growth rate and find that these components of fitness also show a high frequency of beneficial mutations. We also examine whether mutation-acycumulation (MA) lines show any evidence of pleiotropy among accumulated mutations and find that, for most, there is none. However, MA lines that have zero fitness (i.e., lethality) for any one fitness component do show evidence for pleiotropy among accumulated mutations. We also report estimates of other parameters of mutation based on each component of fitness.