Through a series of hypotheses and tests, geneticists revealed that early examples of laboratory-induced
macromutation were, in fact, large-scale genetic damage caused by powerful doses of radiation and chemicals.
Based on the lack of correlation of tobacco use with the soybean loci in our selected line, we concluded that there was no generalist
macromutation. There is a possibility that tobacco is the exception and that, had we tested all other hosts, we might have found most of them to be correlated.
The fatty acid profile difference between the subspecies is primarily caused by the E locus, a
macromutation with a profound effect on erucic and dienoic acid concentrations (Knapp and Crane, 1998).
A
macromutation in Tripsacum dacotyloides (Poaceae): Consequences for seed size, germination and seedling establishment.
It arose as a conceptual
macromutation on November 24, 1859 -- "disgorged," as Mencken (1931) put it, "in one stupendous and appalling dose" -- and has undergone stasis or slow anagenesis ever since.