Transcription-repair coupling and mutation frequency decline

Mutation frequency decline (MFD) is the rapid and irreversible decrease in the frequency of certain damage-induced mutations that occurs in Escherichia coli when protein synthesis is transiently inhibited immediately after the damaging treatment (49). Transcription-repair coupling (TRC) is the preferential repair of transcribed regions at a faster rate compared to the rest of the genome (5). These two phenomena are intimately connected in E. coli. It is our aim to review the current state of knowledge on MFD, TRC, and the transcription- repair coupling factor (TRCF) which is the key protein in both MFD and TRC