Modeling mutations in bacteria and human tissues

TL;DR

This thesis introduces a Levy flight-based model for mutations in bacteria and human tissues, estimating parameters from experimental data and comparing simulation results with real observations, highlighting analogies with cancer and radiation effects.

Contribution

It presents a novel evolutive mutation model using Levy flights and applies it to bacterial and human tissue data, including cancer and radiation effects.

Findings

Simulation results align with experimental data

Identifies analogy between bacterial mutator phenotype and cancer cells

Analyzes radiation as a mutation source in lung tissue

Abstract

This thesis is aimed at studying mutations, understood as trajectories in the DNA configuration space. An evolutive model of mutations in terms of Levy flights is proposed. The parameters of the model are estimated by means of data from the Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE) with {\it E. Coli} bacteria. The results of simulations on competition of clones, mean fitness, etc are compared with experimental data. We discuss the qualitative analogy found between the bacterial mutator phenotype and the cancerous cells. The role of radiation as source of mutations is analyzed. We focus on the case of Radon's decay in the lungs in breathing.