Journal
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 8, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01536
Keywords
gene content; pangenome; bacterial evolution; horizontal gene transfer; genome composition
Categories
Funding
- Nehemia Levtzion Scholarship - Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Israeli Council for Higher Education
- BSF [2013463]
- Yigal Allon Fellowship - Israeli Council for Higher Education
- Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences
- Robert J. Shillman Career Advancement Chair
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Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) serves as an important source of innovation for bacterial species. We used a pangenome-based approach to identify genes that were horizontally acquired by four closely related bacterial species, belonging to the Enterobacteriaceae family. This enabled us to examine the extent to which such closely related species tend to share horizontally acquired genes. We find that a high percent of horizontally acquired genes are shared among these closely related species. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the extent of sharing of horizontally acquired genes among these four closely related species is predictive of the extent to which these genes will be found in additional bacterial species. Finally, we show that acquired genes shared by more species tend to be better optimized for expression within the genomes of their new hosts. Combined, our results demonstrate the existence of a large pool of frequently horizontally acquired genes that have distinct characteristics from horizontally acquired genes that are less frequently shared between species.
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