Cumulative effects of mutation and selection on susceptibility to bacterial pathogens in <em>Caenorhabditis elegans</em>

Understanding the evolutionary and genetic underpinnings of susceptibility to pathogens is of fundamental importance across a wide swathe of biology.&nbsp; Much theoretical and empirical effort has focused on genetic variants of large effect, but pathogen susceptibility often appears to be a polygenic complex trait.&nbsp; Here we investigate the quantitative genetics of survival over 120 hours of exposure (\"susceptibility\") of C. elegans to three bacterial species of varying virulence, along with a fourth strain, the OP50 strain of E. coli, the standard laboratory food for C. elegans.&nbsp; We compare the genetic (co)variance input by spontaneous mutations accumulated under minimal selection to the standing genetic (co)variance in a set of 47 wild isolates.&nbsp; Three conclusions emerge.&nbsp; First, mutations increase susceptibility to pathogens. Second, susceptibility to pathogens is uncorrelated with fitness in the absence of pathogens.&nbsp; Third, with the possible exception of S...., , # Cumulative effects of mutation and selection on susceptibility to bacterial pathogens in *Caenorhabditis elegans* Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzjs](10.5061/dryad.5qfttdzjs) ## Description of the data and file structure The purpose of the experiment was to estimate the cumulative effects of spontaneous mutations on the susceptibility of C. elegans to bacterial pathogens. The experimental methods are described in detail in the accompanying manuscript. The two data files (Supplemental_Table_S1.xlsx and  Supplemental Tables S2-S7.xlsx) consist of Excel worksheets. Each data sheet has its own accompanying \"Readme\" document on the following worksheet. The missing data from an empty cell is changed to a \".\" ### Files and variables #### File: Supplemental_Tables_S2-S7.xlsx **Description:** An Excel file containing Supplemental Tables S2 through S7 from the accompanying article. Each data worksheet, titled \"TSx...\" (where the x is the number of the table) has its accompanying ex...,