Selective neutrality of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase allozymes in Escherichia coli.

Six naturally occurring alleles representing four electromorphs of the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase were transferred by P1-mediated transduction from natural isolates of Escherichia coli into the genetic background of E. coli K12 and were studied in pairwise competition in chemostats limited for glucose in order to estimate differences in growth rate associated with the alleles. Although the level of resolution of such experiments is a growth rate differential of approximately 0.002 h-1, no significant differences among the strains were found. Studies of apparent Km and Vmax in crude enzyme extracts of the strains also failed to reveal any significant differences among the electromorphs. These results support the view that the alleles are selectively neutral or nearly neutral under these conditions.