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Deinococcus radiodurans has a remarkable ability to resist damage to its DNA due to radiation, dehydration or (to my knowledge) any other source. It keeps multiple copies of its genome and has a repair mechanism as well.

My question is: how could this thing evolve to be so sophisticated at preventing the processes behind evolution? It seems that a mechanism to prevent errors would also prevent changes, so that as soon as the organism got OK at preventing changes it wouldn't be able to evolve to get better at it. Were genes for these processes borrowed from other extremophiles? Is the assumption that it was in such extreme environments that the damaging influences were keeping up with the repair mechanisms? That's my guess, but I'd love to hear from others with more knowledge of evolutionary processes.

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According to the "Functional adaptation" section of this webpage, Deinococcus radiodurans uses repair proteins to stitch up DNA after radiation damage. Meaning, after a burst of radiation, the DNA will be in pieces and the repair proteins put it back together. It seems like this mechanism would not come into play during other forms of DNA mutation that happen during replication, such as point mutations or inversions.

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Deinococcus radiodurans did not "develop resistance to mutations".

It is able to repair its chromosome when scatered in pieces by radiations or desiccation, while other bacteria would die in such conditions.

So this is adaptive in extreme environments, such as deserts (where it has evolved) or canned corned beef (where it was discovered).

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