4.7 Article

The consequences of genetic drift for bacterial genome complexity

Journal

GENOME RESEARCH
Volume 19, Issue 8, Pages 1450-1454

Publisher

COLD SPRING HARBOR LAB PRESS, PUBLICATIONS DEPT
DOI: 10.1101/gr.091785.109

Keywords

-

Funding

  1. NIH [GM56120, GM74738]

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Genetic drift, which is particularly effective within small populations, can shape the size and complexity of genomes by affecting the fixation of deleterious mutations. In Bacteria, assessing the contribution of genetic drift to genome evolution is problematic because the usual methods, based on intraspecific polymorphisms, can be thwarted by difficulties in delineating species' boundaries. The increased availability of sequenced bacterial genomes allows application of an alternative estimator of drift, the genome-wide ratio of replacement to silent substitutions in protein-coding sequences. This ratio, which reflects the action of purifying selection across the entire genome, shows a strong inverse relationship with genome size, indicating that drift promotes genome reduction in bacteria.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available