Helmholtz Gemeinschaft

Search
Browse
Statistics
Feeds

Identical sequences found in distant genomes reveal frequent horizontal transfer across the bacterial domain

[img]
Preview
PDF (Original Article) - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
1MB
[img] Other (Supplementary Material)
1MB

Item Type:Article
Title:Identical sequences found in distant genomes reveal frequent horizontal transfer across the bacterial domain
Creators Name:Sheinman, M. and Arkhipova, K. and Arndt, P.F. and Dutilh, B.E. and Hermsen, R. and Massip, F.
Abstract:Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) is an essential force in microbial evolution. Despite detailed studies on a variety of systems, a global picture of HGT in the microbial world is still missing. Here, we exploit that HGT creates long identical DNA sequences in the genomes of distant species, which can be found efficiently using alignment-free methods. Our pairwise analysis of 93 481 bacterial genomes identified 138 273 HGT events. We developed a model to explain their statistical properties as well as estimate the transfer rate between pairs of taxa. This reveals that long-distance HGT is frequent: our results indicate that HGT between species from different phyla has occurred in at least 8% of the species. Finally, our results confirm that the function of sequences strongly impacts their transfer rate, which varies by more than 3 orders of magnitude between different functional categories. Overall, we provide a comprehensive view of HGT, illuminating a fundamental process driving bacterial evolution.
Keywords:Archaea, Archaeal Genome, Bacteria, Bacterial Genome, DNA Sequence Analysis, Genomics, Horizontal Gene Transfer, Molecular Evolution, Sequence Alignment
Source:eLife
ISSN:2050-084X
Publisher:eLife Sciences Publications
Volume:10
Page Range:e62719
Date:9 July 2021
Official Publication:https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62719
PubMed:View item in PubMed

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Open Access
MDC Library